Whitney Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
by wujy
Summary: Book One in my Girl Who Lived series. The beloved story told with a unique and thoughtful twist. How do girls act differently than boys and how does society treat them differently? *FINISHED* Book Two is posted and in process. The first chapter of WPCoS has been added to the end here.
1. The Girl Who Lived

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Note: This story is a reposting of a psych project-turned-pet project that I never finished the first time around. It is now, however, finished, and I'll be posting a chapter a week until it's all up. The main character is based on myself and the personal development and growth I went through as a child, and the story chronicles the decisions I, as a girl, would have made had I been in Harry's shoes. If you read this the first time I posted it, I urge you to re-read as this has been cleaned up and several things have changed.

I may extend this project to the other six books if it turns out readers want more, but for now, all that is written is book one.

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><p>Chapter One – The Girl Who Lived<p>

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><p>At five in the morning, at the small, unremarkable house at Number 4 Privet Drive, no one should have been awake. On any other morning, no one would have been. However, on June 23rd, the young girl who lived there woke up earlier then everyone else and began to cook. She prepared bacon and ham, biscuits and pancakes, sausage links and patties, and three types of eggs. By six-thirty, she was panting and carrying a large tray of French toast to the table in the kitchen.<p>

The girl, called Whitney, was a small, scrawny girl of about ten with dark green eyes and long, strawberry blond hair that was beginning to darken at its roots. A smattering of freckles splashed across her nose and—perhaps most remarkable of all—a thin, lightning-shaped scar adorned her forehead just beyond her bangs. She was all but swimming in an enormous pair of elastic-banded shorts and overlarge t-shirt which were hand-me-downs from her much larger cousin, Dudley, for whom she was preparing this special meal.

Whitney had been preparing breakfast for Dudley's birthday for four years now, since she was tall enough to reach the stove from atop a small step-ladder, and like most things with her cousin, it had become something of a cruel game. Over the past years, it had become habit for Dudley to wake up as early as possible on his birthday just so he could claim that Whitney had been lazing off, making him wait. Today, however, when her over-sized cousin stomped into the kitchen, his beady eyes swept over the spread with an expression something like disappointment.

Whitney might have smiled had she not been straining to lift the French toast onto the table, which sat slightly above chest height for the small girl. She was so preoccupied with balancing the platter, that she didn't see the sudden, triumphant look on Dudley's face as he spotted his opportunity to make his morning more fun. Even if she had seen it, she wouldn't have been able to avoid the kick that swept one of her legs out from under her; she was far too exhausted.

Whitney fell back, hitting her head on the floor, and the plate of hot-from-the-stove French toast toppled with her, burning her face and neck. She screamed and flipped over onto her stomach, crawling backward away from the French toast on the floor until she bumped into something soft, but unyielding. Something that made an '_oof'_ noise when she made contact. She froze, knowing almost instantly what she would see when she turned to look up.

Sure enough, Uncle Vernon was standing directly behind her, looking livid.

"Whitney spilled all of the French toast on the floor!" Dudley whined from his seat at the table. "The French toast is my favorite!"

It was a lie, but Vernon bent down and picked Whitney up by the back of her shirt, underhand tossing her toward the kitchen. "Don't worry, Dudley," he snarled. "She'll make more after she's cleaned up her mess!"

Quickly, so as to avoid the kick she knew was coming, Whitney scurried to fetch a bin to throw out the soiled French toast. She picked up the tray and set about washing it without a word to anyone. She was afraid she'd start crying if she tried to speak, and she didn't have the energy to fight or argue now.

Still, she somehow found the strength to start in again on the French toast, knowing that she would get no rest until her aunt and uncle took Dudley to the zoo later on. She didn't particularly enjoy spending time with Mrs. Figg, the elderly neighbor who so often babysat her, but she sometimes imagined that Mrs. Figg was her aunt and that she was just visiting while her real parents went out. Whitney sniffed back her tears and began a countdown to when Dudley's friend would arrive and the Dursleys would leave.

By the time the next batch of French toast was finished and Whitney was placing it on the clean plate, Dudley had released a long, loud belch and declared that he was full. Vernon was drinking too much coffee to be particularly hungry and Petunia was picking at some eggs while she read a tabloid and commented vapidly on how John Whatsit and Jessica Whoever were getting divorced again.

Taking a minute to calm her shaking hands before she picked up the tray of French toast again, Whitney took one deep breath and placed it on the table with everything else. Silently, she slipped out of the kitchen and headed for the bathroom to check the damage. She made a slight hissing noise and pulled a face when she saw the angry, red welts across her right cheek and forehead where the French toast had scorched her earlier. Tears came to her eyes again, but she shrugged them back and retreated to the cupboard under the stairs, shutting the door behind her. Inside, she smiled sleepily at her pillow and lay down, hugging it to her chest. She sighed as she pulled the cover over her shoulder and closed her eyes, ready for a good rest.

A moment later, a very angry-looking Vernon opened the door, smacking it against the adjacent wall with some force, told her she was a lazy wart and that she would be going to the zoo with them. He left, then, slamming the door and knocking a spider from the ceiling onto her lap.

"Must be dreaming," she whispered out loud to herself, brushing the spider to the floor quickly. But, when she opened the door, she could hear Dudley arguing with Uncle Vernon that he didn't want her to go.

"Don't worry, Dudley," Vernon crooned to his son. His attention turned to Whitney and he glared at her meaningfully as he reassured the boy. "I'll make sure she doesn't do anything to _ruin your birthday_." The last words were spoken with such venom that Whitney flinched.

The girl simply tried to look as innocent as possible, which worked on most people. She was a tiny thing with an honest, if sad, face. She had a slightly underfed look which was amplified by her enormous clothes. If it wasn't for her glass, which had needed to be bought new, she would have looked positively homeless. She looked like the trustworthy sort, though.

In honesty, Whitney didn't want to go to the zoo at all; she hated the zoo. She lived with a pack of animals on a daily basis and didn't need to go and peep at ones kept in cages and tanks. There was something supremely depressing about the sight of a chimpanzee eating a banana and staring at you from the other side of a stone partition.

All around, it was a sort of miserable day. The toast burns that Whitney was already sporting were only made worse by the sunburn she was nurturing by the time three o'clock rolled around. Praying for relief, she was almost thankful when Dudley decided he wanted to go to the reptile house. It was an indoor exhibit and was kept fairly cool. Whitney smiled for the first time in hours as she trailed behind her aunt and uncle at a respectable distance.

When the cool air of the reptile exhibit touched her stinging face, Whitney's attitude instantly improved. She even paid attention to the animals they were passing, though she treated Dudley's comments on them like white noise. She could care less how boring he found the frogs as opposed to bearded dragons. Somewhere near the exit, she found herself leaning forward toward a tank containing a large and probably quite deadly snake, but for the moment it was simply lying there, committed to doing nothing at all for the amusement of stupid people.

Whitney smiled and placed a hand against the glass. "Hello," she said, her voice cracking somewhat. She leaned her forehead against the tank, its cool surface soothing the hot skin. "You are quite the largest snake I've ever seen," she said, talking to the snake like she might a dog. Without anyone interesting to talk to her entire life, Whitney had taken to talking aloud to animals and inanimate objects, a quirk Vernon hadn't yet managed to beat out of her.

The snake looked up at her then and its tongue whipped out quickly, tasting the air; it looked completely bored. "I understand the feeling," she told the snake. "I'm tired enough to slip into a coma right here at your tank."

The snake seemed to grin at her and she smiled back, but stopped immediately when the burn on her face cracked slightly. She winced and almost cried out, but held it together so as not to draw the attention of the Dursleys who she assumed were actively ignoring her.

"What are you doing?" Dudley asked suddenly, shoving her aside rather roughly. Whitney fell to the ground and her glasses skittered away. She pulled up to her hands and knees and started looking around for them, unable to see anything but the blurry gray of the stone floor without them. A crunch nearby triggered a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach and told her that Dudley had found them first.

Tears came to her eyes again and she made an indignant noise in the back of her throat as Dudley kicked the ruins of her glasses across the smooth floor in her direction. Gingerly reaching for them, Whitney grimaced when she felt the damage that had been done. The right lens was shattered beyond repair and the left missing, probably still where it had popped out of the frame next to Dudley. Whitney sat hard on her heels as she held the broken glasses, and fought desperately against the urge to cry.

The glasses had been a special prescription and couldn't be bought second- or third-hand like Vernon had wanted to do. They were almost brand new, and Dudley… Dudley had crushed them completely. There was no way her uncle would pay to replace them. The only reason he'd bought the first pair was because the doctor had been standing right there, watching him.

"No, no, no, no, no," Whitney chanted to herself quietly, her breathing shallow.

"Mum!" Dudley squealed with delight, running down the corridor to fetch his mother. "Mum! Whitney's broken her new glasses. She _dropped_ them! They're _shattered_!"

At the sound of Vernon's shriek of fury, Whitney's heart nearly exploded in her chest. Panicked, she simply sat on the ground in front of the snake tank with her mangled glasses in her hands. Except… except that her glasses _weren't_ mangled. She quickly shoved the glasses back on her face as Vernon descended upon her.

"N-n-nothing… nothing wrong with them," Whitney stammered, trying to look confused, but her uncle's rage was not to be pacified. He hauled her up by her arm and shoved her toward the exit.

"We're leaving!" he exclaimed. "Going home this very minute!"

Whitney couldn't remember having ever been in so much trouble before, especially without knowing precisely the reason for it. When the Dursleys got home, she was made to stand in the kitchen until Piers' mother came to collect him, then she was bodily escorted to her cupboard and thrust inside. The click behind her told her that she'd been locked in. Confused and upset, Whitney sat on the bed and stared at the door for a moment or two before lying down and drawing her knees up under the blanket. She bit her lower lip, which had begun quivering, and silently began to cry.

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><p>Thank you, and as always, please review.<p>

/-wujy


	2. The Flying Motorcycle

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Note: Your reviews just made me so excited that I couldn't wait a whole week to post up chapter two. So, here it is. And as always, please review.

/-wujy

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><p>Chapter Two – The Flying Motorcycle<p>

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><p>Crying without making a sound can be an art form. It's all about taking the energy your heart is screaming for you to throw away and pulling it inside instead. You shred that hurt into tiny pieces rather than allowing it to grow unchecked and spill from you. It was something Whitney had years of practice doing. She hated for the Dursleys to know that she had been crying. She hated the smug looks on their faces when they knew they had succeeded in defeating her.<p>

Whitney trembled through her sobs, burying her face in her pillow whenever she needed to draw a sharp breath. Her fingers shook and twitched from the effort of remaining silent and she curled her body into a defensive ball beneath her blanket. Eventually, from lack of sleep and pure exhaustion, her body shut down and drew her into a fitful sleep.

The girl lost track of how many days she was confined to the cupboard and wondered if it had been weeks. Being isolated from the Dursleys wasn't necessarily the problem, but her stomach began to protest its isolation from food. By the time Aunt Petunia finally let her out, Whitney had been eyeing her pillow cover and wondering if it would go down all right if it were torn into strips.

She drank down the cold soup Aunt Petunia offered in two mouthfuls, broth dribbling down from one corner of her mouth, aggravating her face where it was still burned from Dudley's birthday. She wiped the broth up with one finger and then licked it off while her stomach screamed in barely-improved protest.

"You'll make breakfast," Aunt Petunia said before leaving the room.

Whitney stared at her as she left, her mouth hanging open slightly, but she soon regained control of herself and began preparing breakfast, grumbling under her breath. As she cooked, the smell of the bacon practically caused her pain and she longed to knick a piece to silence her stomach, but resisted the temptation. Maybe she'd sneak something while Aunt Petunia was grocery shopping later.

When she had finished cooking, she put everything on the table and skipped out to take a shower. She was feeling quite grimy after so long in the cupboard. A _schlick-clack_ noise caught her attention and she turned her head to see the mail falling through the slot onto the small rug in front of the door. Quickly, she walked over to grab it and place it in next to Uncle Vernon's breakfast plate, but she paused when she saw her own name in a flash of green ink.

She frowned slightly when she saw that it was addressed to her at 'the cupboard under the stairs,' but tore open the paper immediately and began reading the letter inside. Her frown deepened and she gathered the letter and torn envelope, tossing them in the bin as she set the rest of the mail next to her uncle.

"What's that?" her uncle demanded, gesturing to the bin.

The wild urge to tell him that it was, in fact, a waste receptacle was unusually strong, but Whitney just shrugged and said nothing as she walked away again to take a shower. When she came back downstairs, she was still dressed in too-large clothes, but she was much cleaner and in a considerably better mood. She'd had to take great care with the burns on her face, but she was humming to herself absently as she walked toward the kitchen to see if her aunt had left yet. Angry voices coming from the living room caught her attention and she changed directions. When she drew closer, the words being spoken made her stop and listen.

"—will NOT go to some private school so some old codger can teach her _magic_. She'll be staying here where we can properly beat that nonsense out of—"

Uncle Vernon's tirade ended abruptly in a girly squeal from Dudley and a strangled outburst from a voice that almost sounded familiar to her.

"You will NOT insult Albus Dumbledore in front of me!" the new voice roared.

Whitney inched forward, though every molecule in her body was screaming at her to stop and run from the shouting. She hated shouting and this man was louder than she had ever heard Vernon be. A floorboard beneath her creaked long and low, and she froze where she was, looking up just as a shaggy head appeared around the corner. Whitney squeaked and fell back hard on her rear, putting a defensive hand up.

The head grinned at her and said in a much gentler voice, "Come 'round, Whitney. I 'ave sommat ter tell ya. Tha's a good lass," he said as Whitney pulled herself up from the floor and walked shakily toward him.

When she stepped into the living room, she saw a near-purple Uncle Vernon standing close to Aunt Petunia, who was hovering over a sobbing Dudley. She was trying to hush him, but Dudley was not nearly as practiced with being quiet as Whitney was.

"'Ave a seat!" the giant man said in a booming voice that probably would have passed as happy if everyone always spoke in as loud a voice as he did. Whitney simply stared at him, lost for words. The man waited for a couple of awkward moments before deciding that he wasn't going to convince her to sit. "All righ', then," he said, gripping the handle of a pink umbrella. "Anyway, I s'pose yer wonderin' why I'm here… in yer house."

He cleared his throat and rocked forward on the balls of his feet. The top of his bushy head touched the ceiling before he rolled back onto his heels. "Blimey," he said to no one in particular. "This'd be easier if yeh were a boy."

Whitney had no idea what to say to that, so she didn't. Instead, she asked, "Is it about… H-Hogwarts?"

"Good!" Hagrid boomed, causing Whitney and her uncle both to take a step back from him. "Yeh already know! Good. Well, o' course you know. Yeh read the letter. Detection spell said yeh had. That's why I'm… Why I'm here. Makes this a mite easier on me. Me…? Oh, me! I forgot to in'roduce myself. I am Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."

Whitney's bottom lip started to quiver and she didn't seem to be able to make it stop, so she chewed on it for a moment before asking, "It… it's real?"

"Real!" Hagrid shouted. "Real enough! I had no idea these sorry excuses for Muggles weren't teachin' yeh about where ya come from. About who yer parents were."

Whitney inferred from context that 'Muggle,' meant 'jerk,' and didn't ask about it. At the mention of her parents, however, her eyes grew wide and her fear all but vanished. "You knew my parents?" she asked suddenly. "What were they like? What did they look like? How did they die?"

Hagrid stared at the girl with his mouth hanging open for a moment before snapping it shut. "How? _How_ did they die?" Hagrid asked, looking completely confused. "Blimey, didn't they tell ya who murdered yer parents?"

"M-murdered them?" Whitney asked, her voice croaking at the word. "They don't talk about them at all. S-someone _killed_ them?"

Whitney made a frightened noise and backed away from the huge man as he roared at her aunt and uncle.

"Yeh didn't tell her how her parents died? They didn't-! You-!" The man seemed to be absolutely lost for words and furious for it. "How could yeh not tell 'er _anythin'_? How can yeh call yerselves her family an' keep all this from her? Doesn' even know she's a witch! Abou' the world her parents come from?"

Vernon had taken a step closer to his wife during this outburst, and so was taken by surprise when Petunia suddenly stood up and whirled around to glare at Hagrid over her pointed nose. "Don't you talk about that… that _filth_ in _my _home! We'll have none of that here. No magic. My parents never understood that my sister—my sister, the witch—was just a dangerous freak!"

"STOP IT!"

Hagrid, who had drawn in a deep breath to shout at the woman, was startled into silence when Whitney screamed with all of her might. Petunia, too, had not been expecting the outburst and looked down at Whitney with a stunned expression. Whitney had never shouted or raised her voice before, and now she had her hands over her ears, looking distressed. She never had responded well when Vernon or Petunia were screaming at her, and now that there was a giant man in the room to add to the volume, she was almost shaking.

When Whitney did finally realize that the quiet she'd demanded had been given to her, she looked up at everyone in the room, her eyes settling on her aunt. They were glazed with tears.

"You knew that… that I'm a witch?" she asked, looking hurt. "You knew my parents w… were _murdered_? What… What else?"

Petunia didn't seem to be able to answer the girl who looked so much like her sister. She made a half-strangled noise, and then snapped her mouth shut. After a moment, Whitney looked away, releasing her aunt from her gaze. She turned her eyes to Hagrid and said, "This school… it's like a private school?"

"'At's right! Hagrid said loudly, but decidedly cheerily. "Finest school of magic in the—"

"Do the students live there?" Whitney asked, interrupting him. This caught him off guard and he didn't answer right away, so she repeated herself, elaborating. "Do you live at the school while you go there?"

Hagrid nodded. "Well, yeah—"

"When can we go?" Whitney asked, interrupting him again. A notion had taken her and she was too hurt to listen to explanations or excuses. Not that Petunia would offer either.

Hagrid met her eyes and was struck by just how tired she looked for someone so young, and for the first time, he detected the faint traces of mostly-healed burns on her face.

"Well… I'm ter take yeh ter get yer school supplies today, and the train teh school leaves the first o' September," Hagrid answered her question, his voice at a much more reasonable tone.

Whitney nodded, "Okay."

Without another word, she walked out of the house and out into the yard to wait for Hagrid to follow her. She shoved her hands in her pockets while she waited. Hagrid ducked through the doorway after her wearing an expression like a scolded puppy.

"Ah… 'Preciate it if you didn't tell abou' what happened t'yer cousin," Hagrid said, looking down at his wringing hands.

Whitney looked confused, "What happened to Dudley?"

"Yeh didn't, er… yeh didn' see…?" He broke off and shook his head. "Nevermind," he said. "S'pose yeh'll find out when you get back. Anyway, are ya ready?"

Whitney looked up at him and nodded. He nodded back and lifted his umbrella to point into thin air above a section of the road outside her aunt and uncle's house. Slowly, as though being unveiled, a motorcycle and sidecar materialized out of thin air.

"There we are," he said proudly, walking over and sitting astride the large seat. Whitney followed him and folded herself into the sidecar, looking a little sullen. Hagrid started the motorcycle with a roar and fiddled around with the buttons and levers as though confused. "Sorry," he apologized. "Flyin' it takes differen' buttons than drivin' it."

This caught Whitney's attention. "Flying it?" she asked, looking more interested. "It can fly?"

"'Course it can," Hagrid said as though all motorcycles could fly.

"Can we… can we fly it?" she asked, perking up a bit.

"Stric'ly speakin', I'm not s'posed ter…" Hagrid stopped and looked at her for a moment, and decided that he couldn't watch her happy face turn back into a disappointed one. He leaned down and smiled at her. "Hold on to sommat," he told her in a low voice, winking as he flipped a switch on the bike and it lifted straight up into the sky. For a moment, Whitney was pressed down against the floor of the sidecar, but when they started to reach a good height, their ascent slowed and she was able to get a peek over the side of the car.

Her face lit up when she looked down over Privet Drive and saw just how small the house really was. She imagined a teensy ant-sized Uncle Vernon running out into the yard, shaking his fist at them. Then, she imagined squeezing ant-sized Uncle Vernon between her thumb and forefinger until he smushed. She smiled the whole way to London.


	3. A Lightning Scar

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Note: Feeling supremely sorry for myself today, so decided to post another chapter.

Also: Around this point, I normally get asked about the Dursleys, so let me mention something early on. I find a lot of GWL stores feature fem|Harry being very well taken care of by the Dursleys, which I really hate. I just want to state here that, if you're looking for a story where the Dursleys see the error of their ways, that will not happen here. You may possibly see a softer side of Snape later, but he will still be the jerk you've come to love.

Hope you enjoy, and as always, please review.

/-wujy

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><p>Chapter Three – A Lightning Scar<p>

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><p>For Dudley's ninth birthday, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had rented a small two-seater airplane for an hour so their precious son could go flying. Whitney had spent the day with Mrs. Figg, searching for Professor Wiggins, a fidgety tortoise-shell who it had later turned out had been cowering beneath the sofa the entire time.<p>

Dudley had bragged for weeks after about how wonderful his trip had been—how he had so loved seeing London from the air and how the pilot had done barrel rolls and loops upon his command. Whitney only remembered having to scrub ice cream throw-up out of Dudley's clothes later that evening, so she had always assumed that flying was a terrible way to travel.

In the air over London, however, with the wind blowing her hair back from her face, Whitney experienced a true sort of happiness that was unfamiliar to her. She didn't know what to do with that kind of emotion, so she just leaned her head over the side, looking at the scenery below her, silent tears wringing themselves out onto her cheeks. Thinner air and fast winds suited her, apparently.

When the bike began to fly back toward the ground, Hagrid put one trashcan lid-sized hand over Whitney to make sure she didn't lift right out of the sidecar. The landing was surprisingly soft compared to the turbulence she'd been expecting, but her legs were still a little shaky when Hagrid helped her out of the car.

"Here's yer school list," Hagrid said, handing over a piece of paper that looked much like she one she'd thrown away earlier that day. "Follow me, now."

Whitney read over the list as she followed Hagrid, but she was very confused by all of it. Even if they could find everything on the list—and something told her that Hagrid could find _anything_ in London—how would she ever afford it? Maybe Hogwarts did a scholarship program for children with good grades. She'd always had good grades in school.

"Mr. Hagrid," Whitney asked, following him straight through the pub and out the back door.

Hagrid chuckled and said, "Jus' Hagrid."

Whitney cleared her throat but didn't restate. "I don't think you realize that getting my aunt and uncle to just buy me _glasses_ was like pulling teeth. They'll never buy any of these things. Especially if you did something to Dudley."

Hagrid shushed her at this, looking around to make sure no one was listening to them. "Nothin' abou' that, hear?"

Whitney said nothing as he lifted his umbrella and began tapping bricks in the wall outside of the pub. After the last tap, the wall slowly peeled back its own bricks until there was a gap large enough for both of them to walk through. Whitney's mouth fell open as she watched, but she had enough presence of mind to follow Hagrid as he walked onto the street in front of them. "This is Diagon Alley, m'dear," he told her. "We'll get all o' yer school supplies righ' here."

Whitney jogged alongside him and said, "But I can't buy anything here."

"Yeh can after we stop at Gringott's, the bank," he said. "Yer parents left yeh some gold. Don' ye worry yer head."

Whitney flushed a little pink at this thought. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had never permitted questions about her parents, and after years of being punished for asking, she had started to give up on learning anything at all. In fact, it had been so long since she had dared to speak aloud about her parents that she had nearly stopped thinking about them entirely. In fact, despite herself, she had even begun to resent them for leaving her alone with her aunt and uncle. Knowing now that they had been murdered and had still made sure she was provided for, she could only feel a rush of shame. Shaking her head, she followed Hagrid to the bank, wondering if she could ask him more about her parents.

Gringott's was an impressive building, all white marble and imposing threats of doom. The goblins were truly fascinating, too, and Whitney found that she often had to physically stop herself from staring at them. She tried to smile politely, but worried that they might think the worst of her. When one of them—Griphook—was assigned to take them down to her vault, she had to restrain herself from asking him what would probably be considered quite personal questions. He seemed to notice her staring at him, though, and when the cart stopped at her vault, he looked at her and grinned widely with all of his pointed teeth. Whitney found herself crawling as quickly as possible out of the cart.

Griphook led Whitney and Hagrid to the vault door where Hagrid handed the goblin a small key that he used on the door before handing it back. When the door was opened, Whitney felt her mouth flop open at the sight of the vast stacks of gold and silver inside.

_Wow, Mum and Dad_, she thought to herself. Emotion stung the backs of her eyes and she almost succumbed to tears. She took a few steps forward tentatively and managed to sputter, "Is this… is it really… I mean, really?"

Hagrid chuckled a little and grabbed several of the coins, shoveling them into a small pouch that he handed to her. The weight of it was a little unexpected and she stared at the pouch wordlessly while they rode the cart further into the depths of Gringott's. She didn't step out of the cart this time, for whatever it was that Hagrid had come for was putting the large man in a secretive mood. She looked up long enough to see him grab a brown paper-wrapped package and place it in one of the seemingly infinite pockets of his coat before returning to the cart. He was looking a little shifty, like he was doing something shady, so she didn't ask him about it. Instead, she tucked her pouch of gold away and smiled to herself, humming as they rode up and back into the sunlight.

Hagrid looked a little queasy once they were topside, but Whitney was also glad to no longer be breathing stale air from the underground. After the excitement had worn off, something about being underground and never being sure if she'd ever see the sun again make her skin clammy. Once they were outside, Hagrid pointed over to a darkly-lit shop across the street and said, "You go righ' over there and get yerself a wand. I'll, er… I'll be back in a mo'."

He ambled toward the pub at the entrance and left her standing there on the street, giving Whitney the opportunity to finally get a proper look around Diagon Alley. The shops that lined the cobbled street were old, but quaint, full of things the girl never would have guessed you could buy in a store. There were no cars or scooters, only people walking from place to place, which made Whitney feel more at ease. Without the loud, angry sounds of the city, the only sounds in Diagon Alley were cheerful conversations, shop owners calling out specials, and childrens' laughter. To Whitney, the harsh world she'd grown up in had vanished, leaving something softer, kinder, and all-too foreign to her.

After a few moments of absorbing what was quickly becoming her favorite place, Whitney suddenly became extremely conscious of what she was wearing. Her triple extra large sweatshirt hung to her knees, hiding the belt with six extra holes punched into it so her pants would stay up. She grimaced at herself and looked around, spotting another store that had black robes in the display. She glanced from the clothing store to the wand store before making her decision.

"Madame Malkin's," she said out loud to herself, sure that Hagrid would find her eventually. Besides, she was all right on her own. When she stepped inside, a stout, little witch, presumably Madame Malkin, walked over to her and immediately began to take her measurements.

"Er…" Whitney began to say. "I need—"

"Your school robes, yes dear," the woman said.

"Well, I was… also hoping maybe you had some other clothes, too? To go under the robes, you know?" she asked, lifting up one arm where the sweatshirt sleeve engulfed her wrist and hand and hung off her like an elephant's trunk. "Clothes I could… wear out in London?"

The witch stood back from her as if just noticing the girl's strange apparel and said, "Quite, right. These are atrocious, aren't they? Even for Muggle clothes" The measuring tape kept measuring her even without Madame Malkin holding it.

_That word again_, Whitney thought. _I'll have to find out what it means…_

The witch plucked the measuring tape out of the air and shook it once. A stretch of red fabric popped out of it and the witched tugged on it. Like a magician pulling scarves out of his sleeve, she continued to pull on the fabric, which seemed to be tied to a length of denim, which was next to be pulled out of the tape measure. It was just a simple t-shirt and pair of jeans, but they looked like they were just the right size. Looking quite pleased, Whitney took them to the changing room in the back and put them on, discarding Dudley's old hand-me-downs in a nearby bin.

"They're brilliant," she said to the full-length mirror in the changing room. Her reflection smiled back and agreed in a male voice, "Quite an improvement, I must say." Whitney's jaw dropped, but her reflection just continued to smile pleasantly until she slowly backed out of the room, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands.

The witch, Whitney saw, was now measuring and fitting a young boy with a round face and a distressed expression. There was an old woman nearby who was fussing over him at the same time as Madame Malkin and both were fighting for elbow room.

"I'd love you to bring it in here," the old woman said, gesturing to the shoulder, "and let it out here," she said, tugging on the materials around the boy's stomach. "Give him a few inches to grow into it at the bottom, but try to get the sleeves about right. They can be adjusted later."

At the same, exact time, Madame Malkin was saying, "I've been doing this for more than twenty years, Ms. Longbottom, I can tell where a child is going to grow and where they're going to shrink and your grandson has time to grow into his shoulders and lose his baby fat. I've already trimmed back the sleeves and lengthened the whole outfit, so _please._"

Whitney grinned as she watched. It was interesting to watch the two women bicker over the robes. The utter look of horror on the boy's face when Madame Malkin mentioned baby fat was truly entertaining.

"I'll be with you in a moment, dear," Madame Malkin said, throwing a smile in Whitney's direction when Ms. Longbottom had finally taken a step back.

"No hurry," Whitney said honestly. The longer she stayed in Diagon Alley, the longer she stayed away from Privet Drive, and that was okay with her.

Madame Malkin smiled and say to Ms. Longbottom, "Such a dear, that one, I can tell. Very polite."

Whitney blushed slightly and, without thinking, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. A low whistle from the group in the store caught her attention and she looked over to see Ms. Longbottom looking at her with wide eyes.

"Merlin's eyes," she said, walking over to the girl and settling a small pair of glasses on her nose that had been hanging around her neck.

Whitney was quite alarmed when the woman reached out to touch her face. Ms. Longbottom caught herself before actually touching the girl and stepped back as though only just realizing what she was doing. "Oh, my," she said, simply.

Whitney was left unsure what to do, but as she was thinking, Ms. Longbottom wrestled her grandson away from Madame Malkin and led him over. He looked just as confused as Whitney did, but his expression was apologetic, at least. Whitney smiled in brief, uncomfortable appreciation. The boy's grandmother cleared her throat meaningfully and he took the hint with a jolt.

"Neville," he said, rather in a hurry. "Neville Longbottom. I mean, I _am_. I _am_ Neville Longbottom and… Neville is… me." He cleared her throat and looks to his grandmother with uncertainty.

Ms. Longbottom scowled heavily, but Whitney giggled, which was a sound she hadn't made in a very long time. Neville blushed, but looked a little relieved.

"Whitney," the girl said, putting her hand out. "Whitney Potter."

Instead of taking her hand as she'd expected him to, Neville simply looked dumbstruck and stared at her. After a long, awkward moment, Whitney put her hand down, looking confused and slightly hurt. Here, in this new world where magic was possible, she had almost begun to believe that people might be nice to her. She put her hands in her pockets, not sure how to conduct herself after Neville's stunned silence.

He wasn't the only one looking surprised, though. Madame Malkin looked up from the fabric she was cutting and stopped paying attention to her wand, which was now cutting through a seam.

Whitney's fear of rejection jumped to the forefront in those few, silent moments and she immediately stammered, "I-I-I'm sorry. Did… Did I do s-something wrong?"

At that, Ms. Longbottom jabbed Neville in the ribs and he finally came round, turning red to his ears. "Er, s-sorry," he apologized. "But, _really_? You're really Whitney Potter. With the—" his eyes looked up to somewhere around her forehead. "With the _scar_?" he finished in a whisper. His grandmother gave him another jab, and he rubbed his sore ribs slightly.

Whitney looked very confused at this, but pushed aside the hair from her face, revealing the lightning-shaped scar above and slightly to the left of her right eye. "This?" she asked. "I've had it since… since I can remember..." She let her voice trail off, not sure what the fuss what about. She cleared her throat, looking uncomfortable on the spot. "I don't remember what from, really…" she finished rather lamely, letting her hair fall back down again.

"No, I don't suppose you would," Ms. Longbottom said sagely. "You weren't more than a babe when the Dark Lord killed your parents."

"D-D-Dark Lord?" Whitney asked, sensing the foreboding in the woman's tone. "Who's… who's the Dark Lord?"

"My dear child, don't you know?" Ms. Longbottom asked, looking positively scandalized.

"I… I just found out this morning that I'm a witch," Whitney said in a small voice, feeling slightly guilty for not having asked more questions about her parents from Hagrid before she'd gone off on her own.

"Only just found out?" Madame Malkin ventured after having stopped her wand from cutting clean through the robes she was working on. "It'll be an awful shock, then, when you start to realize that everyone in our world knows your name, child!" the woman said, cackling as though she'd said something terribly funny. Whitney, however, just looked terrified.

_Everyone?_ she thought wildly. _Everyone knows who I am?_ Unsure if she could handle this news, Whitney changed the subject.

"What…" she began to say, but had to wet her lips before beginning again. "What do I owe you for the clothes?" Whitney asked Madame Malkin, leaving behind the gawking boy and his grandmother. She pulled her pouch of coins out of her pocket. "And the school robes I need?"

The shopkeeper helped Whitney count out the odd coins and told her to come back in three hours to collect the finished robes. Whitney nodded wordlessly and slipped out of the shop without a backward glance at the Longbottoms.


	4. A Curious Wand

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Note: Correction: I'm feeling magically sorry for myself today. It's just one step up from 'supremely,' so you get one more early-release chapter.

If you read this story during its first incarnation, this is one of those chapters where I changed a lot. I urge you to read it, and as always, please review.

/-Wujy

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><p>Chapter Four – A Curious Wand<p>

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><p>It was as if the scene inside the shop had been the dam breaking over Whitney's tunnel-vision view of Diagon Alley. She was now noticing people pointing at her and whispering behind their hands. A few walked up to her and shook her hand quite without asking. When she'd been with Hagrid before, none if this had happened. Or at least, she hadn't noticed it then. Madame Malkin's voice replayed in her ears.<p>

"_It'll be an awful shock, then, when you start to realize that everyone in our world knows your name, child!"_

That laughter echoed in her head, sounding far more sinister than it had been intended. She felt as though this must be what it's like to go mad. And maybe that's all any of this was! Maybe she'd never left her small room beneath the stairs this morning; she was simply lying comatose on the tiny bed with Petunia prodding her with a wooden spoon. This was all a fever dream caused by dehydration and starvation.

"Oy!"

Whitney spun in a circle when she heard the shout. When she spotted Hagrid's immense frame over the crowd of people, she ran to him, nearly in tears, and shouted, "Why? Why didn't you tell me? Everyone here knows who I am!"

Hagrid looked genuinely remorseful and said, "I keep forgettin' yeh don' know who y'are. Come on, then. Come with me."

Together, they walked back to the pub, which she now knew was called the Leaky Cauldron, and sat down where Hagrid explained to her the circumstances surrounding her parents' deaths and the ultimate dismissal of the Dark Lord.

By the end of the story, Whitney's mouth had fallen wide open and she was sure she'd gone completely insane. "This… this can't be real. I'm dreaming," she said, getting up from the table. "I'm being pranked," she continued, shaking her head as she walked away. Hagrid put an enormous hand on her shoulder and she stopped, turning back to look at him over her shoulder. Her eyes contained a world of pain that no ten-year-old should ever know.

"Yer smarter'n that," Hagrid said with confidence. "You know better."

Whitney's eyes glistened as she looked at Hagrid, begging him to tell her that none of it was true. She shook her head at him and he wiped at her eyes with a surprisingly gentle touch. She cleared her throat and finished wiping at her tears with her sleeves. Just as she acceptance was dawning on her, someone behind her spoke.

"M-m-miss P…P-Potter," said an unfamiliar voice behind her with a heavy stutter. She turned to face the man who had addressed her. He was a tall, thin man wearing a purple turban, which at this moment, was simultaneously the least and most unusual thing in the world to the girl.

Whitney simply stared at him for a moment while he gave her a shaky smile and said, "Qu-quite p-p-pleased to m-make you're aqu…acquaintance."

"Er… thanks," Whitney said, not sure what else to say.

"Professor Quirrel!" Hagrid exclaimed, getting up to join them. "Whitney, this is Professor Quirrel. He'll be one o' yer teachers when yeh get up ter Hogwarts in the fall."

"Yes, qu-quite right," Quirrel said, followed immediately by, "Well, m-must be off. Th-things yet to c-c-collect in D-Diagon Alley."

"Us too," Hagrid said happily, clapping the poor man on the back so hard that his turban was knocked slightly askew. Hastily, the man straightened the turban and strolled off at a strong pace. Whitney just watched as the odd man left as abruptly as he had arrived.

Hagrid looked down at Whitney and smiled at her. It was a warm gesture that actually put away some of the cold, twisty feeling in her stomach. "Come on," he said reassuringly. "We'll finish gettin' yer supplies together."

Hagrid led her around Diagon Alley and gathered all of her supplies for school. Nothing else extraordinarily strange happened until it was time to purchase the final item—her wand. Getting a wand was what Whitney had been looking forward to the most. "Righ' in there," Hagrid said to her. "You take care o' this one yerself an' I'll pop over and get yer birthday present."

Whitney blushed, but didn't have any time to protest that she didn't need him to get her a birthday present. He was already gone, whistling as he walked away from her, so she took a deep breath and stepped into the dimly lit wand shop. Mr. Ollivander, the shop owner, was already helping another student pick out his wand.

"I knew it," Mr. Ollivander said. "Unicorn hair was the right fit."

"Yes, yes," the boy said dismissively, waving the wand around so that it emitted red sparks in the air. Whitney watched him jealously.

"Ah," Mr. Ollivander said, spotting her. "Getting a wand for school, girl?" he asked her, already moving toward a seemingly endless shelf full of wands. He picked up three boxes immediately and placed them on the table in front of her. Before she could open any of them, however, he whisked them away, shaking his head and muttering something to himself as he disappeared into the far reaches of the shop.

Whitney looked slightly disappointed at having been denied the chance to try out a wand, and the boy snickered slightly. "Bit of a nutter, Mr. Ollivander," the boy said, looking her over like a jeweler checking the quality of a diamond. He had a slightly pointed face, though not necessarily in a bad way, and his pale blond hair made him look unnaturally fair-skinned. He was dressed in black robes like the ones she had seen in the window of Madam Malkin's.

Whitney shrugged. "No more than anyone else here," she said, though almost immediately regretted it. She grimaced and tried to rephrase. "I mean… people here are just… They're…"

"Nutters," the boy repeated agreeably. "The man didn't even take my money before he moved on to someone new."

She shrugged again. "He seems distracted."

"My father says he isn't completely _present_ if you know what I mean," he said, making a winding gesture near his head so that she couldn't possible _not_ know what he meant.

Whitney nodded noncommittally and changes the subject. "Your father says," she repeated. "So your father's a wizard, then." It wasn't really a question so much as an observation.

The boy snorted and answered, "Of course. Any wizard worth his wand comes from magic, doesn't he? You're not Muggleborn, are you?" he asked, looking at her clothes disdainfully.

_Muggle_, Whitney realized. _Nonmagical. Got it._

She shook her head. "My parents went to Hogwarts," she said. Trying to sound like she knew what she was talking about, she utilized her new vocabulary word. "I've been living with these horrible… _Muggles…_ since they died," she added. "Relatives. Distant ones." She said the last a bit venomously, thinking about her aunt and uncle.

The boy perked up a bit and he sneered. "Are they awful?" he asked, looking interested. "I bet they're horrid."

Whitney grinned at this and nodded, happy to be talking to someone about how terrible her aunt and uncle were without fear of persecution. "They are!" she agreed with ethusiasm. "They're basically animals taught to wear clothes and walk on their hind legs." Draco laughed.

Just then, Mr. Ollivander came back with an armful of boxes, cradling them as though reassuring all of them that they had a chance. The boy cleared his throat to get the man's attention and, as though he had entirely forgotten that the boy was in the room at all, Mr. Ollivander exclaimed, "Oh! Yes. Right."

Carefully, he set down the boxes on the counter, just tempting Whitney to try one as he counted out the boy's payment. Gently, she picked one of the boxes at random and, holding it gingerly, waved it around like the boy had done earlier. Anticlimactically, nothing happened. Put out but not put off, Whitney replaced the wand and tried another. And another. She was testing out the third wand when the boy came back around to her and held out his hand authoritatively.

"Draco, by the way," he said, introducing himself. "Draco _Malfoy."_ He stressed his own last name as though she should recognize it. She didn't, but she took his hand and shook it anyway.

She hesitated before giving him her name, but decided it would be impolite not to, especially after they had bonded over her dislike of her relatives. "Whitney Potter," she said a little shyly.

Draco's expression suddenly froze where it was and he stopped shaking her hand, though he still held it in his. The pause lasted less than a second before he forced his composure back into place and said, "Yes, well it was… _nice…_ meeting you."

He turned on his heel to leave, but Whitney called out a quick, "Thanks," before he made it to the door.

He paused for a moment, turned to look over his shoulder at her. "For what?"

Whitney cleared her throat and looked slightly uncomfortable. "For not… going weird when you heard my name," she admitted. "Everyone else so far… Well, people have been making a fuss. It's... been sort of miserable."

Draco looked at her for a moment and Whitney got the distinct impression that he was trying to decide if she was being honest or not. Whatever he decided, she couldn't tell, but he nodded anyway. "I'll see you," he said before leaving.

Whitney bit her lower lip and turned to Mr. Ollivander, who was gazing at her with amusement. Mr. Ollivander shook his head, answering the unspoken question. "I knew who you were the moment you stepped in here. Let's get started, shall we?"

Where Whitney had originally been excited about getting her very own wand, after trying more than a hundred of them, she was beginning to worry that she had absolutely no magical ability at all. They'd send her back to live with the Dursleys, then. Her panic showed in the way the wands were beginning to react to her touch and twice she accidentally gouged long runs in the wooden counter.

"Here we are," the old man said, holding up the next wand. "If this doesn't work, then…"

His voice trailed off and he looked thoughtfully at the wand for a moment, as though it were speaking to him. "Really?" he asked no one in particular. Perhaps he was asking the wand. "Really…" he repeated, dropping the wand back in its box and reaching under the counter for a slightly more ornate box.

A tingle ran down Whitney's spine when she saw the wand and her fingers twitched in anticipation. She reached forward with one trembling hand, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth and biting down on it hard. She picked up the wand and, from the instant it left the box, it trailed a beautiful stream of golden sparks that made the girl smile.

"A perfect fit," Mr. Ollivander said. "Curious, but perfect."

"Sir?" Whitney asked, looking up from her wand at the tone of his voice.

"Curious that this wand should choose you, my dear. The phoenix whose tail feather resides in this wand gave one other feather for one other wand." He reached forward to brush the hair out of her face and his fingers traced her lightning scar lightly. Whitney didn't move; something about the old wizard's touch was almost comfortable, even though the action was rather personal. "The brother to your wand gave you this," he said in a soft tone.

Whitney shivered at the thought, but a warm pulsing sensation traveled up her arm from the wand flowed across her shoulders and down her back, reassuring her. There was no other wand for her, she knew.

There was silence in the shop for another moment before Whitney cleared her throat and looked meaningfully at Mr. Ollivander who seemed to snap out of a silent meditation.

"Right!" he said cheerily, moving toward the register. "Seven Galleons, Miss Potter. Those are the gold ones."

Whitney smiled, slightly more comfortable since the atmosphere in the small shop had changed, and paid Mr. Ollivander for the wand before leaving the store. Her smile faded into shock when she saw Hagrid stranding in front of her holding a beautiful, snowy owl in a cage and beaming at her proudly. Tears came to her eyes as she walked toward them and she took the cage from Hagrid carefully.

"Hagrid," Whitney said, her voice a tone of awe. "It's... I mean… You didn't have to."

Hagrid puffed out his chest and said, "Yer welcome. Everyone deserves a bit o' sommat on their birthday. An' it's a 'she'."

Whitney smiled as she looked into the eyes of the snowy owl and said, "This… this is the best birthday present I've ever gotten."

"May you have many more," Hagrid said with sincerity. "Now, let's get yeh back ta yer aunt an' uncle's."

"Do I have to go back?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. She didn't make eye contact with him.

"'Fraid so, poppet," he said with some affection. "It's just fer two weeks until the train leaves fer Hogwarts," he added, handing her a boarding pass for the train.

Whitney stared at the ticket a little numbly, but nodded, hugging her new owl's cage tightly before walking back toward the Leaky Cauldron with Hagrid.


	5. The Beginning of a Journey

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in anyway.

Note: Because I like to address my reviews, especially when I get questions, I wanted to take a brief moment to answer someone. I was asked, after the last chapter, whether Whitney would become friends with Draco and become a Slytherin. The simple answer is no. After meeting Draco in Diagon Alley, she hasn't discounted him. They even bonded. However, Draco as a child is a little monster. He's mean, judgmental, and just a jerk. It's fun to be mean to the Dursleys, but Draco will eventually be very mean to someone who doesn't deserve it, and it will color Whitney's opinion of him.

I don't typically like to give out spoilers like this, but I also don't want anyone to read this and become very disappointed later when they find out that Draco's still a prat, and Harry/Whitney is still the hero.

As always, please review.

/-wujy

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><p>Chapter Five – The Beginning of a Journey<p>

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><p>The last two weeks with the Dursleys were more miserable than any fourteen days Whitney could remember having ever experienced. Vernon was angrier than usual, Petunia was more watchful than ever, and Dudley was whinier, if that was possible. To Whitney's great delight, she learned that part of this was due to the fact that Hagrid had hexed Dudley with a pig's tail! She'd had to excuse herself to her cupboard in order to regain her composure before she could look at Dudley again without feeling the gleeful urge to laugh in his face.<p>

Aside from that momentary pleasure, however, Whitney made her best effort to stay out of everyone's way when possible, and do whatever they asked as quickly as she could. It was never quick enough, though, and she earned a few kicks from her uncle and cousin, but the hope of Hogwarts was enough to get her through each day.

Asking her aunt and uncle for a ride to King's Cross Station also turned out to be a rather unpleasant experience. After telling her exactly where she could put her school admission and train ticket collectively, Vernon had snatched the boarding pass from his young niece's hands and torn it in half. Whitney felt a sinking feeling in her stomach as he did so, but the ticket simply mended itself as the pieces fluttered to the floor. This did nothing to improve Vernon's mood.

Angrily, he had then ripped it into tiny pieces only to have a brand new one reappear later in his oatmeal. Stuffing it down the garbage disposal wasn't effective either and only resulted in the jamming of the disposal and the reappearance of the ticket tucked under the collar of his shirt.

Finally giving up, he thrust the ticket back at her and said, "Keep this _thing _to yourself, frea—"

He stopped in midsentence as his watery eyes caught something on the ticket and he smiled. It wasn't an altogether cheery smile, though. In fact, it was almost predatory. Whitney looked up at him nervously, but he only said, "I'll take you to the train station, girl," and tossed the ticket on the floor at her feet. As he walked away, fuming, she thought she heard him mutter something like, 'Nonexistent garbage."

She wasn't sure how to respond to his sudden compliance and anger, so she didn't, and only retreated once more back to the cupboard under the stairs where she spent a great deal of her time until the first of September.

When the first did come around, Whitney's uncle was unusually helpful in making certain that she wasn't forgetting a single book or scrap of clothing and ordered a grumpy Dudley to help her put her things in the car. To her amusement, she noticed Dudley actively keeping himself turned just so that his rear was never exposed to her, and he occasionally rearranged his trousers where the tail Hagrid had given him was. She smiled to herself, but didn't prod her already upset cousin by asking him about it as much as she dearly wanted to.

Vernon was humming slightly when all four of them piled into his company car with Whitney's owl and took off for London. He turned back to check on Whitney every now and again, eyeing her with a nasty look that turned her excitement at leaving into a heavy, worried weight in her stomach. She had the sinking feeling that Vernon was happy about something that was going to ruin the rest of her day, and realized that it wasn't entirely unlikely that he was going to drive her into the middle of London and simply leave her with her magic books and a wand.

Whitney suddenly became very uncomfortable sitting in the car, and it wasn't just because she was squished against Dudley's overhanging love handles every time Vernon turned left. She considered briefly jumping out of the car as it came to a stop at a traffic light, but there was no way to do so without hurting the owl, which was sitting in the cage on Whitney's lap. She would also then have to walk all the way back to Little Whinging by herself, and she wasn't even sure how to get back from where she was. She was now at the mercy of her smug uncle. Her grip tightened on the owl's cage as she silently waited for the car to stop.

"Here it is!" Vernon said, his voice booming in the little car as it came to a stop. He laughed out loud to himself as he stepped out and yanked Whitney's luggage from the trunk, dropping it onto the sidewalk. He laughed again, a deep chuckle from his belly that sounded evil in its intent. Whitney got out of the car then, maintaining her hold on the owl's cage, and Vernon got back in behind the wheel and drove off, still laughing.

Whitney's stomach began to fill with lead as she watched the car drive off, leaving her on a busy street with no idea where she should go. She rotated on the spot next to her luggage, peering around the pedestrians who were eyeing her owl warily but without much curiosity. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the sign for King's Cross Station. They hadn't left her in the middle of the city after all!

They had, however, left her with too much luggage to carry on her own. She chewed on her bottom lip slightly as she considered how to get into the station with her trunk and the owl's cage. She could ask someone to help her, she reasoned, but there was really no telling who was trustworthy and who wasn't in the city, so she resorted to a two-part system. She would sit the owl's cage down, drag her trunk for a few feet, and then retrieve the owl's cage and repeat the process. It was slow going but, when she finally reached the entrance to King's Cross, a young man came over to her and helped her set the trunk on a trolley. He left her to wrestle with the cage on her own though, not willing to earn the wrath of the owl which nipped his hand when he tried to pick her up.

"Wotcher!" he cried out, yanking his hand back from the cage and walking off, looking offended.

"Sorry!" Whitney called after him. "And thank you!"

Looking a little guilty, she began pushing her trolley, which was unwieldy for a girl her size and kept veering off in the wrong direction. She pushed it out of the way for a moment to take a look at her train ticket. "Come on, come on, come on, come on," she chanted under her breath as she tried to find the platform number. Her heart sank when she did.

"Nine and… three quarters?" she breathed out loud to herself. "Oh, no. This… this must be a joke," she said, feeling tears threaten her eyes. "This must be a… a really cruel joke."

She sniffed and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve hastily, trying to hold off the tears. The gravity of the situation was hitting her and she knew all too well that she was an eleven-year-old girl with no Muggle money, a trunk full of spells and magic supplies, an angry own in a cage, and no idea how to get back to Privet Drive. She was just about to succumb to silent sobs when a voice nearby caught her attention.

"—packed with Muggles, of course," the voice was saying.

Whitney's eyes snapped up, looking for its source, a short, red-haired woman who was leading a series of red-haired children all pushing trunks similar to her own. One of them even had an owl cage on top of his trunk like she did. With no thoughts to her trolley, she left her trunk behind her and ran over in a hurry, wiping stray tears from her face with one hand.

"Excuse me!" she called, running up to the woman. "Excuse me!"

The woman stopped and turned to her, looking down matronly. "Can I help you, dear?" she asked. "Are you lost?"

"N-not exactly," Whitney said, her face turning red now as she had the woman's full attention. "I just… I heard you talking about… I thought you could help me." Her sentence ended in a little of a mumble as she presented her ticket for the train to Hogwarts.

"Oh, my!" the woman said, smiling as she saw the ticket. "You must be a first year," she said kindly. "Where are your school things, dear? You don't expect to go without any of your supplies?"

Whitney sniffed, looking relieved and pointed over to where she'd left her things. "I just didn't want you to leave without… without me," she said, clearing her throat and trying to contain herself. _Like my aunt and uncle_, she thought, but didn't say.

The woman gave her a pitying look and snapped a finger at two identical boys who went over and fetched the trolley and owl. They returned, looking very cheery and Whitney thanked them rather sheepishly, taking the owl back from them while one of them pushed her trolley and his own.

"The platform's easy, once you've seen it done, dear," the woman said. "Percy, you go first," she said, motioning to one of her children who seemed to be the oldest. Looking slightly smug, the boy pushed his own trolley toward the barrier between platforms 9 and 10. A moment later, he had disappeared.

Whitney wiped at her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things, but it really looked like he had just vanished.

"You just go straight through the barrier," the woman explained, "and the train is on the other side. Best take a run if you're nervous. Fred and George, you next," she said, gesturing to the twins who had fetched her things. They took her luggage cart along with them and she was grateful. She was sure she'd have spilled her trunk onto the ground had she been forced to work against the wonky wheels.

"You can give it a go, if you want," the woman said to her. "Just don't stop in the middle, or you'll run right into the wall."

Whitney nodded, but looked doubtful. She took her owl's cage in hand and began to walk toward the barrier. Her step picked up as she drew closer until she was running full on at the wall. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her arm, sure she was about to earn a concussion for all her trouble was worth. When no crash came, she lowered her arm and opened her eyes, which immediately widened in surprise.

"It's real…" she said to herself, almost crying with relief that it hadn't all been a very splendid dream.

"'Course it's real," two voices said in unison off to her left. She looked over and smiled a little nervously at the twins who were waiting for her.

"We loaded your trunk onto the train for you," one of them said to her, though she wasn't sure if it was Fred or George.

Whitney looked almost confused by this, but stammered out a quick, "Th-thanks, very much."

"Just get on the train there," the second one said, pointing to one of the doors.

"And go two compartments down and to the left," said the first again.

"It's in there," they said together before jogging off.

Whitney smiled and hugged the owl's cage tightly. The nameless owl squawked, a bit annoyed, and Whitney lessened her grip, walking onto the train where the boys had indicated. She had been a little suspicious of their sincerity at first, but her trunk was in the compartment and appeared to still be locked. She sat down on one of the seats and drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and enjoying her first moment of peace since… well, since as far as she could remember.


	6. Aboard the Express

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Note: I just get too excited about the next chapter and can never wait a whole week. XD Enjoy, and as always, please review.

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><p>Chapter Six – Aboard the Express<p>

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><p>Whitney leaned back into the wall of the compartment and closed her eyes slightly, feeling the train start forward. She was just settling into the blessed silence when she heard the compartment door slide open. Her eyes flicked open almost defensively, but she smiled when she saw the familiar face.<p>

"Hello, Neville," she said, wiggling the fingers of her left hand at him in greeting.

"Whitney," Neville said as though she was the last person he expected to see. The compartment was silent as he stood in the doorway, seeming to search for the right words.

Whitney cleared her throat and pointed to the seat across from her. "Are you… going to sit down?" she asked, looking uncertain.

"Oh!" Neville said suddenly, as though he wasn't aware that one should sit on a train. He blushed and walked into the compartment, dragging a trunk behind him with all of his strength. Whitney moved to help him shove the heavy luggage into the overhead rack and then went back to sit down in her seat. Neville sat across from her, looking awkward.

After a period of silence, Neville cleared his throat, getting Whitney's attention. "S-Sorry," he said, shifting in his seat. "About Diagon Alley. My gran. She's a bit…" He stopped and turned a little pink around the ears.

"It's all right," she interrupted him, turning back to look at him. "Everyone… everyone stares a bit. At least she wasn't trying to hide it."

Neville nodded. "Still, I'm sorry if she upset you."

Whitney smiled at that thought, then shook her head slightly. Neville looked relieved.

The compartment was silent after that, but decidedly less awkward. Whitney, who had stayed up very late with her History of Magic book, was dozing slightly when some clattering outside caught her attention. She jerked awake, nearly falling out of her seat, looking alarmed.

"I did the dishes yesterday!" she called out in her half-asleep state, but when she looked around, she realized that she wasn't in her cupboard and Aunt Petunia wasn't banging on her door. Neville was stifling a giggle across from her and Whitney grinned, embarrassed.

The compartment door slid open and a kindly-looking woman pushing a trolley full of sweets asked, "Something sweet, dears?"

Whitney almost completely dismissed the woman before she realized that she _did_ have some money to spend. She wasn't used to that feeling. Suddenly, the wizard gold seemed a bit heavier in her pockets than it had before. After figuring out how much everything cost, Whitney grabbed a little of everything to try and a few extra of the Chocolate Frogs for good measure.

"Hungry?" Neville asked her, looking amused.

"D'you want some?" she asked, looking almost excited. "I've never been able to afford any…" Whitney trailed off and looked up, startled that she had said something so private to someone she'd just met. She flushed, trying to think of some way to salvage what she was talking about. "I mean… I just…"

"How about a frog, then?" Neville asked, interrupting her embarrassment and reaching for the candy she'd offered him.

She smiled and said, "Sure." She took one, as well and opened it, removing both the collector card and the chocolate. She chewed absently on a chocolate leg while she looked over the card in her hand, which was of a severe-looking witch holding a short, stout bat. As though on a television screen, a smallish, black ball appeared from nowhere. The witch wheeled around and smacked it away, then returned to her pose.

Whitney's mouth dropped open; she turned the card over in her hands.

"Do you collect the cards?" he asked her, seeing her interest in it.

She shook her head slowly. "No, I just… nevermind. I've never had these before," she said, unwrapping some chewing gum that promised floating bubbles.

"Really?" he asked. "None of it?"

Whitney shook her head. "Well, it's not _regular_ candy, is it?" she asked him.

Neville looked at her sideways. "Reg… Oh, you mean _Muggle_ candy. I heard you were sent to live with Muggles. What are they like?"

Whitney looked very uncomfortable and said, "Well… I suppose most Muggles might be okay. My aunt and uncle… well, they don't really like magic, so…"

The boy looked confused. "Don't _like_ it? How do you not like magic?" he asked.

Whitney grinned at this and said, "I don't know. I think it's brilliant!"

She blew a bright blue bubble and it floated to the ceiling of the compartment.

After a few minutes of helping her eat through her collection of sweets, Neville began to rummage through his bag, looking for something. Focusing on the scenery from the window while sampling some curious jelly beans, Whitney paid him very little attention until his searching became slightly more frantic and he began muttering softly under his breath.

"Is… everything all right?" she asked, turning her gaze to him.

"He's gone," Neville said, looking distressed.

_Mental… I'm trapped on a train with a nutter,_ Whitney thought to herself. "All right…" she said slowly, not sure how to approach the situation.

"My toad, Trevor. He's gone again!" the round-faced boy said, removing everything from his bag to find the creature.

"A toad?" Whitney asked, sounding confused. She glanced over at her own owl's cage for a moment and decided she had experienced stranger things so far. "Uh, what does he look—Nevermind. Stupid question. Where did you see him last?"

Neville stopped tearing through his belongings long enough to close his eyes and think about it. "I had him in the station," he said, "and… I _think_ I had him when I got on the train. But, I don't… I don't know where he's gotten to."

Whitney looked uncertain about what to do, but said, "Well, all right. Does he… Does he make a lot of noise?"

Neville shook his head. "Sometimes when it's dark," he replied, "but not usually."

Whitney tried to think back to science class and everything she had learned about frogs, but was fairly certain that knowing how to locate its kidneys wouldn't be helpful. She'd only ever dissected one before and had no idea how to _find _one.

"Does he run off a lot?" she asked. "Or… hop off, I suppose."

"All the ruddy time," Neville groaned, covering his face with his hands.

Whitney stood up from her seat and Neville started. "You'll help me look for him?" he asked, sounding relieved. Whitney opened her mouth to say that she was only looking under the seats, but Neville looked so grateful that all she could do was nod.

"Let's go, then," she said, moving toward the door.

Neville followed her wordlessly, looking miserable, and left Whitney to knock on doors to ask people if they'd seen a toad anywhere. The short answer was that no one had seen a toad, but the looks of ridicule on the other students' faces told Whitney all she really needed to know about how popular it was to keep one around. Not particularly fond of starting conversations with complete strangers, Whitney began to make Neville answer the doors and ask about his toad.

"You should keep after your pets better," came a bossy tone from one of the compartments. A head of bushy hair atop a stern expression stepped out of the car and looked at the two of them. The girl couldn't have been any older than Whitney or Neville, but she held herself with a certain amount of authority that made her seem more than her age.

"So… you haven't seen him, then?" Whitney asked, not sure how to respond.

The girl seemed not to notice Whitney's question at all. Instead, she said, "I read about toads last year and they tend to hide in dark places." Walking down the hall ahead of them, she continued to talk; Whitney and Neville followed aimlessly. "You should look in all of the compartments under the seats and ask everyone if they've seen him. I'm Hermione, by the way."

Whitney had just been about to tell the girl she wasn't telling them anything new when the girl introduced herself. _It's only polite to introduce myself in return_, she thought to herself, not really looking forward to more silent gawking.

"Neville," Neville introduced himself rather sulkily. "Longbottom."

Whitney cleared her throat, looking reluctant, and said, "Whitney Potter."

"Are you really?" Hermione asked, though she didn't sound particularly interested as they walked down the hall, intermittently stopping to ask students if they'd seen a toad. "I know everything about _you_," she said. "I've read all sorts of books about you. I heard you were sent to live with Muggles."

This having not been a reaction Whitney had anticipated, she took a moment to respond. "Yes," she said at last, sounding surprised. "Wait, there are books about me?"

"All sorts. _Whitney Potter, the Girl Who Lived_, _The Unofficial Biography of Whitney Potter_, _She-Who-Banished He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named_," Hermione listed off a few titles. "There are dozens. If it was me, I'd read them all just to see what people are saying about me."

"But… I've never done an interview or… anything. How can there be books about me if I don't even know about them? Don't you need… permission or something?" Whitney asked.

Hermione shrugged. "I doubt it. You're public news aren't you? Excuse me, have you seen a toad? A boy called Neville has lost one."

That last had been to the contents of a compartment that consisted of only one boy and one that Whitney recognized. He was the youngest of the red-headed boys she'd met earlier. She waved a little weakly to him and he waved back. "No," he said to Hermione. He opened his mouth to say something else, but Hermione was already shutting the door and returning to the conversation at hand.

"Anyway, though, it's really mad, isn't it? Magic, I mean. Mad and brilliant. My parents are Muggles, you know, so I had no idea any of this was real. I mean, I had _some_ idea, because of the strange things that happened around me growing up, but all of _this_!"

Whitney smiled at this. "I didn't know, either," she said. "My aunt and uncle are Muggles and… they don't really like magic, so they never told me about any of this. I didn't even know… I mean, about my parents until a few weeks ago."

"That's dreadful!" Hermione exclaimed, though Whitney got the sense that it was more because Hermione wanted to hear what her own voice sounded like with an indignant tone, rather than because she was actually concerned for Whitney's situation.

Hermione stopped abruptly and turned back to Whitney and Neville. "I don't think we're going to find your toad, Neville," she said, shaking her head. "I'm really sorry."

_She doesn't sound very sorry…_ Whitney thought to herself, but didn't say anything.

Neville took in a deep breath and sighed heavily.

"Don't worry, Neville," Whitney said, trying to be optimistic. "I'm sure he'll turn up."

Neville didn't look particularly cheered, but he nodded and began walking back down the hall with Whitney. Hermione followed him until she reached her own car and stopped in the doorway.

"You two should change into your robes soon," Hermione called out to Whitney and Neville as the two walked away. "I imagine we should be arriving soon!"

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><p>Additional notes: Right around this time in the story, I get asked whether Whitney will become friends with Ron and Hermione, since she doesn't seem to like them much now. If you don't want this spoiler, I suggest you stop reading now, although I'm not really giving anything to secret away here.<p>

The answer is, yes. Ron and Hermione play essential roles in the books and I would never leave them behind. However, Neville was introduced earlier on because he will play a more important character in this fanfic than he played in the books. This is because Whitney is based on me and I would have gotten along better with Neville than Harry did.

Fear not, dear readers, I will be screwing with as little treasured canon as possible.

I also get asked if Hermione was always so annoying. XD The answer is YES! I didn't even realize it myself until I went back and reread the chapter. Hermione was insufferable until she almost died, then she started being a decent human… er, _witch_.


	7. The Very First Day

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

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><p>Chapter Seven – The Very First Day<p>

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><p>The train rolled to a halt shortly after Whitney and Neville had finished changing into their robes. They left their luggage on the train to be taken to the school separately and, once they were outside, Whitney heard a familiar voice calling all of the first years over. She smiled, relieved that someone she knew was going to take them to the school. She wasn't sure how much more of this 'dealing with new people' she could take.<p>

Sticking close to Neville, Whitney made her way to the boats, loading into one with the red-haired boy from the train. Whitney smiled politely and he waved, looking a little queasy.

"You all right?" she asked him, looking worried. She wasn't sure she could handle someone throwing up on her new robes on the first day of school.

The boy nodded, then shook his head. "Just… nervous about the Sorting," he said.

"Sorting?" Whitney asked. "What Sorting?"

The red-haired boy looked at her like she was mad, but Neville answered the question. "It's how they put you into your Houses," he said. "You put on the Sorting Hat and it tells you which House you go to."

Talking about the Sorting seemed to have made Neville a little nervous, too, because he didn't even look up from the water as Hermione joined their boat.

"You… you wear a _hat_?" the red-haired boy asked looking relieved and angry at the same time. "Fred and George were going on about—" He stopped himself, looking decidedly more pleased with the situation. "I'm Ron, by the way," he said, putting out his hand.

Even though he wasn't really talking to her, Hermione took the hand first. "Hermione Granger," she said crisply.

Ron made a face, but Whitney didn't notice. She was busy trying to think of ways to introduce herself that wouldn't make people stare. Unable to think of anything, she took Ron's hand, shaking it, and simply stated, "Whitney."

Ron didn't seem to catch on to who she was immediately, but Neville chimed in, "She's Whitney Potter," and Ron's expression turned surprised. He looked down at his hand in hers, staring at them for a moment, before looking back up toward her forehead where Whitney's bangs concealed her scar.

Whitney threw a dirty look at Neville, who looked chastised, but didn't say anything. Quickly, she swept her hair back to give Ron a good look at what she now felt to be a _brand_ on her skin.

"Blimey," Ron breathed, looking almost impressed.

"It's only a scar," Hermione said suddenly, getting Ron's attention.

The boy blushed and Whitney found herself thankful for Hermione's blunt behavior. The boat descended into labored silence as the First Year fleet launched out across the lake. The rowing took all of their breath and they silently made their way across the water.

"Must be… some kind of… tradition…" Hermione said when they'd reached the dock and climbed out of the boat.

Whitney nodded, but was too winded to really say anything. She heard Hagrid knock heavily on the Hogwarts door and a stern-looking woman stepped out to greet them.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," Hagrid said to the woman.

"I'll take them from here, Hagrid," she told the man, and then wordlessly led them into the building. The main hall was truly magnificent; Whitney had never seen anyplace quite so beautiful, save perhaps snippets of Buckingham Palace she'd seen on television. Professor McGonagall then led them to a smaller room just off the Entrance Hall.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," she said, looking at all of them as they stood together in the group. "Dinner will begin shortly, but first you will all be Sorted into your Houses. Your House will be something like your family while you're here are Hogwarts. The four Houses are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. You may also gain or lose points for your House depending on your behavior. The House with the most points at the end of the year is honored at the end of term banquet.

"The Sorting Ceremony will begin shortly. I shall return when we're ready for you. Please wait quietly."

Whitney's heart sank further into her stomach with every new piece of information she was given. The fact that she knew nothing about magic or the wizarding world was beginning to occur to her and nausea was setting in. After the woman left, Whitney took a moment to calm herself before she spoke, opposed to throwing up on her first day of school.

"N-Neville…?" she asked, looking at him. Before she could ask her question, however, someone placed a hand on her shoulder. She whirled around, looking concerned, waiting for a teacher to whisper to her, 'We're sorry, Miss Potter, there's been a mistake. We'll have Hagrid take you back home.'

She smiled a little nervously when she saw who it was, though.

"Hello, Draco," she said to the blond boy who had gotten her attention.

Draco took her hand and air-kissed over the back of it. Whitney looked immediately confused, but her cheeks turned slightly pink. She cleared her throat. "Draco, what… what are you…?"

"Rescuing you, of course," Draco said, interrupting Whitney's thought.

"Resc… From what?"

"From the wrong sort of wizard," Draco replied, his gaze falling across Ron, Hermione, and Neville.

Whitney's mouth fell open in surprised. Hermione could be annoying and Neville was a bit pessimistic, but she liked the three she'd met so far. Her attention turned to the two larger boys who were flanking him. The Draco in front of her was slightly different from the boy she'd met at Ollivander's. This one was more… mean-looking. She wasn't sure what had brought on the change, but she didn't like it at all. He suddenly reminded her very strongly of Dudley.

Her eyes narrowed and she said the only thing that came to mind. "That… isn't very nice, Draco."

Draco sneered and jabbed one of the larger boys in the shoulder. The boy laughed tonelessly for a moment before stopping. "You'll find out soon enough, Potter, that some wizarding families are better than others. I can help you with that."

A vein in Whitney's forehead twitched and she decided that she really didn't like being called by her last name. "I…I think," she began, but had to wet her lips when her mouth went dry. "I mean, I like…"

Whitney was lost—losing momentum as she faced Draco, not sure what to say. "I don't… understand," she whispered at last, looking at the boy with an almost fearful expression.

Before Draco could reply, Professor McGonagall returned and began ushering the students into the Great Hall. In the bustle, she got separated from Draco and his bulky companions, and had lost track of her three, new friends.

Whitney gulped back her terror as she waited for her turn. She watched Hermione and Neville Sorted into Gryffindor, where all of Ron's brothers seemed to be, as well. She watched Draco and his two head-bashers Sorted into Slytherin. Still more were happily Sorted into Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.

Whitney was so nervous, she forgot what the reaction would be like when her name was announced to the entire hall. When it finally _was_ called, she was struck by just how different the atmosphere had become as she walked toward the Sorting Hat. Trying to ignore the general reaction of the students, she placed the hat on her head and sat on the stool.

"Don't worry, dear," said a voice in her head. "I won't bite."

Far from being reassuring, the voice triggered a feeling of panic and Whitney nearly jumped off the stool. Whitney felt the equivalent of a mental chuckle in her head.

"Scared of me, is it?" the hat asked her.

"N-no," she said, though she was shaking. "I… I just don't know what to do."

The statement had multiple meanings and Whitney got the sense that the Hat knew this. She wasn't sure what to do with the Hat, or with Draco, or magic in a general way.

"You haven't anything to worry about, my dear," the hat said with some amusement. "Perhaps we'll just have a short chat."

"O-okay."

"You're quite brainy, I see. But also a good and loyal friend. Good, strong heart."

Whitney cleared her throat. "Ah, thanks. The school nurse said I was a very good runner."

Another chuckle. "I didn't mean your actual heart, dear. You're a fighter! There's bravery in you. But you also have the potential for more. You'd be very good in Slytherin, I believe. You know how to get away with things. Wake up early and sneak some tellie? Take a longer shower while everyone's away? And the sort of things you can talk yourself out of," it said. "Not many can lie on their feet."

The Hat laughed again, then asked, "Get it? Lie on your feet?"

Whitney thought quickly about Draco, who was watching her from the Slytherin table, and the transformation he had undergone since their meeting at Ollivander's. What had changed him so? Did he behave differently around his friends?

"No…" she said, shaking her head so that the Hat jostled and lowered further over her eyes. "Please, no."

"Please? Oh, well you may be new at this, but you've already learned at least one magic word. I know just where to put you.

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Whitney felt her heart skip as one fourth of the students in the hall erupted into cheers and whistles. Quickly, she removed the hat and walked over to the Gryffindor table where Neville was saving her a seat. Hermione was sitting a few seats away and Whitney waved weakly, emotionally drained; the other girl smiled back. A few moments later, Ron joined them, looking shaken but proud.

And then the Headmaster spoke. Whitney had never even heard his name before except when Hagrid had lost his temper at Uncle Vernon. Now, though, she recognized him from one of her new chocolate frog cards. He was an unusual man, for certain, but she was too distracted by the vast amounts of food that appeared on the table to bother paying much attention to what he was saying.

Trying not to seem too eager, she picked at the food, but still managed to eat as much as she wanted. She noticed Ron watching her at one point and put down a chicken leg she'd been about to eat. "What?" she asked.

He shook his head and said, "I've never seen a girl eat so much."

Whitney blushed and said, "I was just… all I had to eat today was the candy from the train."

Ron turned red, as well, and Whitney turned her attention elsewhere. Her gaze fell on the teacher's table where she noticed Professor Quirrell who she had met at the Leaky Cauldron. He was facing away from her, but she recognized the purple turban easily. He was talking to another teacher, who glanced in her direction. A searing pain echoed in her head as the man looked at her, and Whitney clutched her scar.

"Ah!"

"All right, Whitney?" asked the boy she vaguely remembered was called Percy.

"H-headache," she said. "I'll be fine."

"Well, I'll be sure to show you the Hospital Wing later, should you need a nurse," he assured her, though she somehow felt as though it wasn't for her well-being, but for the sake of his _appearing _to be helpful.

After dessert, Professor Dumbledore spoke to them again, warning them to stay away from the third-floor corridor or else suffer a painful death. Whitney paled slightly, but was full enough of good food and pumpkin juice that she was more preoccupied with staying awake long enough to be shown to a bed. Yawning, she followed Percy and the others up to the common room and, too tired even for words, waved to Ron and Neville as she followed Hermione to the girls' dormitory.


	8. Just a Name

Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I affiliated with Harry Potter in anyway.

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><p>Note: I was given a suggestion that Hermione figure out about the heavy abuse and neglect on the part of the Dursleys. It's actually a quite clever idea, and Hermione actually is the first to figure it out, but not until much later. Whitney is actually much better at hiding this fact than Harry was. Ron and his brothers, after all, found Harry with bars on his window and a doggy flap on his door, his magic locked away in a trunk. This is probably not going to be the case when I get around to writing the second fic in the series.<p>

I love your comments and suggestions so much, so as always, please review.

/-wujy

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><p>Chapter Eight – Just a Name<p>

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><p>The next morning, Whitney was up before the sun, or indeed any of the other girls. She stretched and yawned, considering going back to sleep for a while, but knew it was no use. When she was awake, she was awake. She sighed and dragged herself to the shower, which was deliciously warm. She took her time, enjoying that she could take a shower without fear of Dudley running the sink, drenching her in icy water. She smiled to herself as she put her face in the hot water.<p>

Feeling quite refreshed, Whitney quickly got dressed in her school robes and went down into the common room, which was a cozy room decorated in reds and golds. Neville was sitting in one of the chairs by the fire, so Whitney went to go join him.

"Morning," she said, smiling.

"Hullo," Neville said groggily. He looked like he'd had a terrible night.

"Didn't you sleep?" she asked him.

"I've been up looking for Trevor," he told her.

Whitney opened her mouth to say something reassuring but, just as she was about to, something nearby made a loud croaking sound. Whitney looked confused for a moment, but Neville burst out laughing. After a moment, she joined him, snorting a little, but she stood up and picked up the toad from behind her chair, handing it to Neville.

"What are you two laughing about?"

The two of them looked around to see Hermione peering at them curiously.

"Nevermind," Neville said, holding Trevor tightly so he couldn't escape again.

"Good morning, Hermione," Whitney said happily.

"You're awfully cheery," Hermione said back, looking almost suspicious.

Whitney thought about that for a moment before saying, "I suppose I'm just happy to be here." She sighed and thought about the Dursleys for a moment, before casting them from her thoughts and saying, "There are worse places to be."

She gave Hermione a smile that had a bit of sadness mixed into it, and walked toward the portrait hole. She paused almost immediately as soon as she reached it and turned back to the other two with a look of realization. "Er… I don't suppose either of you remember how to get back to the Great Hall, do you?" she asked them.

"I can get us there," Hermione said, sounding more confident than she looked.

"You can all follow me," said a voice from the opposite side of the room where Percy was descending from the boys' dormitory, Ron in tow. "You'll learn to navigate the school as easily as a Prefect in a couple of weeks," he said pompously. "Good to see you all up with the dawn," he added. Neville simply looked miserable, so Whitney took his hand.

At the breakfast table, which began filling up after Whitney, Hermione, Ron, and Neville had seated themselves, all of the students were given their syllabi for classes. Whitney immediately committed hers to memory. Finding them, she knew, would be nearly impossible at first, but she hoped to make it easier on herself by at least knowing when she needed to be in which rooms.

Whitney's owl broke the silence when she swooped down at the four of them, landing deftly on the table. Whitney smiled and scratched the place on top of her head lightly. "I really need to give you a name," she said absently, feeding the owl a bit of sausage from her plate. The owl lifted up one foot, to which a letter had been attached and Whitney removed it, looking confused. "Where'd you get this, girl?" she asked.

"Owls are useful that way," Ron said, piping up. "Bringing you mail, I mean. Percy got one for being Prefect and _I_ got his old _rat_."

Whitney smiled at the sad, little creature that Ron produced from his robes. "Been through the mill, haven't you, sweetie?" she asked the rat, looking sympathetic as she opened her letter. It was from Hagrid.

"Hagrid wants me to come down and have tea with him on Friday," she read out loud.

"I've heard of him," Ron said, chewing on a piece of slightly burnt toast. "He brought us over on the boats, didn't he? My brothers say he's a bit mad."

Whitney snorted and said, "Everyone here's a bit mad. He seems nice enough, though. I think I'll go."

"You want company?" Neville asked. Ron and Hermione looked around, interested in going, too.

"Sure," Whitney said, smiling. "We'll go Friday afternoon."

...

As it turned out, Whitney's assumption that finding their way around the castle would be difficult was entirely correct; it was also an understatement. The entire week was spent trying to remember the layout of the corridors. Besides that, Whitney discovered she also had to focus on avoiding the Slytherins. Finding where all of her classes were was difficult enough without having to duck past random people in the halls trying to trip her or steal her book bag.

The Slytherins, she learned quickly, had some sort of rivalry going on with Gryffindor and seemed to find extreme pleasure in tormenting Whitney in particular. She wondered if this was Draco's doing or just something Slytherins normally did.

"He must still be sore that you snubbed him day one," Neville said, shrugging at dinner Thursday evening. "Thanks, by the way," he added, his cheeks turning pink.

Whitney shook her head and looked slightly shameful. "Except I didn't snub him," she said. "I just stood there like a babbling idiot. She sighed. "I should've… said something. I should have called him a prat and told him to take a long walk off a short cliff."

"You were braver than me," Neville protested, looking away.

She kicked him lightly under the table and said, "Shut up."

When he looked up, she was smiling at him, so he grinned back.

Neville, Whitney had decided, was all right, but there were the rest of her classmates to worry about. Whitney had never felt so surrounded in her life. Everywhere she went, she was followed by stares and whispers. She was used to similar treatment from public school where Dudley spread nasty rumors about her, but this was an entirely different feeling. She wasn't being teased or made fun of. Had that been the case, she would have at least known how to deal with it. Instead, she felt ostracized and sure that someone was watching her at all times.

Besides Ron, Hermione, and Neville, only Fred and George treated her like a normal person. Or, well… the twins they treated her the way they treated everyone else, anyway—like a walking, talking science experiment.

Where her teachers were concerned, only Professor McGonagall treated her as though there was nothing special about her, which she appreciated deeply. Professor McGonagall was just as stern and strict with Whitney as she was with everyone else. Transfiguration class became somewhat of an oasis of normalcy for her, which was a strange concept since the entire class revolved around changing objects into other things.

Professor Snape, the black-haired teacher who she'd seen on her first day talking to Professor Quirrell, also did not treat her as though she were special, though he certainly did treat her differently. After a few cracks about her popularity, Whitney was already feeling secluded and attacked, almost as though she were staring down Uncle Vernon.

Then he started asking her questions she had no way of answering.

"Potter!" he called to get her attention. She really didn't like being called by her last name at all. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Whitney's mouth dropped open as she tried to search for an intelligent answer, even though she knew there wasn't one in her head. She hadn't been allowed to look at her school books before leaving for King's Cross. She had no idea what the answer was. Hermione, next to her, raised her hand quickly.

"I… I don't know, sir," Whitney answered slowly.

"Then tell me, where would you look to find a bezoar?"

Snape's face seemed to be Transfigured into Vernon's before her eyes. The familiar sensation of her body locking up returned. "I don't… I don't know," she said quietly, her vocal chords strained to capacity.

Snape looked angry and continued to ignore Hermione, who clearly knew the answer. Whitney resented Hermione for her eagerness to answer questions that were clearly designed specifically to embarrass her.

"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

Whitney felt cornered. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words game out. She heard a few of the Slytherins snicker, and Hermione slowly—and thankfully—put her hand down, focusing on Whitney.

Whitney's eyes welled up and she fought not to cry as she desperately willed herself to know the answer.

_What's the difference? What's the difference? Come on… What is it?_

Looking fearful, Whitney met Professor Snape's gaze, tears sparkling at the corners of her eyes. Barely breathing, she shook her head, unable to respond with words.

Suddenly, Snape withdrew and Whitney saw an odd look on his face. He was looking at her the way Aunt Petunia looked at her sometimes when she was close to crying.

The Potions Master physically stepped back from her desk and began to explain the answers to all of the questions, still ignoring Hermione who'd put her hand back up when it had become clear that he was finished interrogating her classmate. Eventually, though, she lowered her hand and went to taking notes instead.

Whitney sniffed, wiping her eyes on the back of one sleeve and trying to be inconspicuous about it. Numbly, she began copying notes, as well, but they were scribbly and blotchy and she was sure she'd have to copy Hermione's later. She felt something soft hit the back of her head and whirled around to see a wad of paper on the floor. She simple looked at it for a moment before turning, downtrodden, to her notes. _Rubbish. It's no different than Privet Drive._

The rest of the lesson went poorly to say the least. Whitney was so distracted by how unfairly Snape had treated her that she barely noticed when Neville managed to melt the cauldron he was using, sending a wave of whatever accidental concoction he had created across the floor. Whitney stood there long enough for the potion to seep into her shoes while everyone else in the room was climbing on top of their chairs to avoid it. She gasped when pain like sizzling iron swept over her. She tripped over her own feet where boils had began to spring up and fell over, landing on her back in more of the solution. She wasn't as covered as Neville, who had been in the blast radius, but both of them had to be carried to the Hospital Wing after Snape had cleaned the potion from the floor.

Whitney and Neville spent the better part of a full day in the Hospital Wing being fixed up by Madame Pomfrey. Their only visitor was Hermione.

When she came into the room, she paused and handed Whitney something, saying, "Oh, this was next to you on the ground in Potions. I thought you might want it back."

Whitney looked down at the crumpled paper ball that had hit her in the back of the head in class. It was less crumpled than before, and clearly Hermione had opened it. Whitney pulled at the edges until the paper was relatively smooth and found two words written on it: "Don't cry."

Whitney read it three times before tossing it into the bin, looking confused. _It was a note? Who…_

She didn't have much time to think about it, though, as Hermione had brought them the Charms homework from the class that they'd missed and even helped them catch up on it, for which Whitney was grateful.

"So, see?" Hermione said, looking rather smug when she had finished, "it's really not all that difficult at all. You simply employ the proper wand movement in order to maximize the chance of a successful cast."

Neville said, "It's easy for her to say. Her fingers aren't the size of sausages and oozing green slime," he said, lifting up his hand where the boils had sprouted between his fingers.

Whitney, who had been fighting back tears for hours, tried to smile, but it was too painful. She sniffed, looking sad, and Neville immediately looked apologetic. "Sorry," he said. "I'm rubbish. I didn't mean to hurt anyone."

Whitney nodded, still looking sulky, but said, "It's okay. I'm rubbish, too. I don't know what I'm even doing here."

Neville looked at her with what might have been confusion had his face not been covered in golf ball-sized boils. "But… you're Whitney Potter," he said, as though that were an important distinction.

Whitney spread some more of the ointment Madame Pomfrey had given her onto her arms and shrugged. "That didn't mean anything until three weeks ago," she said in a quiet voice.

"What do you mean?"

Whitney shrugged. "I wasn't anyone special until three weeks ago. Three weeks ago, there wasn't any such thing as magic or Lord Voldemort. Whitney Potter was just a name and I was just a girl who didn't have any friends. A scrawny, four-eyed, freckled, _loser_ with a massive scar smack in the middle of my face! And tell me how I'm supposed to change _that_ all in a month's time!"

Neville wasn't sure how to respond to that.

Whitney took in a deep breath and sighed heavily. "Sorry… I didn't mean to shout."

"'S all right," Neville said. He hesitated for a moment before saying, "You said his name."

"What?"

"Lord… You-Know-Who. You said his name."

Whitney shook her head. "Sorry. I know I'm not supposed to."

"No," Neville said. "It was… kind of cool."

Whitney, who wasn't expecting that reaction after the amount of coaxing it had taken Hagrid just to whisper the name to her, looked up at Neville with surprise. After a moment, she smiled a little. "Shut up."

Neville grinned.


	9. Boarhounds and Broomsticks

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Note: The author notes are replies to reviews, so are a little lengthy. They're at the bottom of this chapter so as to not get in the way.

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><p>Chapter Nine – Boarhounds and Broomsticks<p>

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><p>Whitney, who hadn't been covered in nearly as much potion as Neville had been, was released from the Hospital Wing with enough time to make it to Hagrid's on Friday afternoon. Ron was waiting for her outside the castle, kicking at some patches of grass off the steps of the castle, but Hermione was nowhere to be seen.<p>

"Ready?" she asked, catching his attention.

He looked up and said, "Wasn't sure Madame Pomfrey would let you out in time."

"Well, thanks for waiting anyway. Where's Hermione?"

Ron looked a bit guilty at that question. "She, er… She went to go do some… homework."

Whitney blinked at the response, looking confused. "Erm, all right. Well, I suppose it's just us two, then. Neville's still… _oozing_ a bit."

Ron pulled a face. "That's really disgusting."

Whitney grinned a little. "You should try it sometime. It's worse when _you're_ the one covered in slime." It was pleasant, she decided, to be able to joke with friends.

Ron laughed a bit and they walked together toward Hagrid's hut. Whitney knocked on the door once they arrived and was startled by the sound of barking from within. It was a deep barking that could only belong to a very large dog, which made her nervous. The only pets she'd ever had contact with were Mrs. Figgs' cats—with whom she didn't get along very well—and her Aunt Marge's dogs, which were little terrors.

"Back, Fang!" Whitney heard Hagrid shouting from behind the door as he wrestled with something large.

"Fang?" she asked out loud, paling. "The biggest dog I've ever seen, Hagrid could pick up one-handed."

"Should we run?" Ron asked her.

"Most likely."

"Count of three?"

Whitney nodded. "One…"

"Two…" Ron followed, sweat beading at his brow.

Before they could make it to three, however, Hagrid opened the door. It was a wonder he could, since the enormous boarhound he was restraining should have taken all his strength just to hold back. The black dog, drooling excitedly over what looked like perfectly sharp teeth, was pulling against Hagrid so hard the man's feet were sliding against the wooden floor. Whitney squeaked and didn't move, but Hagrid ushered them in with his free hand. Whitney stepped inside and Ron followed her, inching around the edge of the room. When Hagrid shut the door, he released his hold on Fang who bounded at Ron and began licking his ears.

Whitney smiled in relief, though Ron looked almost horrified. "This is, er… Ron," she told Hagrid since the boy was otherwise occupied.

"Another Weasley, eh?" Hagrid said. Ron was too distracted by Fang to say anything. "Not troublemakers like yer brothers, are yeh?"

Ron only sputtered, trying to protect his face.

Whitney gave a low whistle, which caught Fang's attention and he dropped down onto the floor on his haunches, tail wagging madly in the air. It smacked Ron a few times in the chest, but when Whitney placed an inviting hand on her lap, Fang leapt up and rested his head on her robes, tongue lolling onto her knees. "Oh, I like him," she said, petting the dog. "He's nothing like my aunt's little monsters."

"Fang's a pushover," Hagrid said, yanking the dog away from her; Fang whined, but did as he was directed. "'Ere. Have some o' these."

Hagrid offered a plate of small cakes and Ron and Whitney both helped themselves to one. These turned out to be impossible to eat, however. Whitney tried her best to nibble on one of them, but wasn't able to quite scrape any small piece of them off with her teeth. Instead, she dropped it into her tea while she drank it. It sank like a stone to the bottom of the mug, and Ron and Whitney told Hagrid about their classes.

"Don' worry abou' Snape, now," Hagrid said after hearing about Potions. "Doesn' like anyone, really. 'E's a good man, though."

Whitney looked doubtful, but her attention was drawn away by a newspaper on the table. She picked it up when she noticed the name of Gringott's on the front page.

"Hagrid," she said, reading the article. "This happened the day you and I were at Gringott's. This happened on my birthday. We… we could have been in the underground while this was happening."

"Codswallop," Hagrid said, not meeting her eyes. "Nowhere's safer'n Gringott's, 'cept maybe Hogwarts. Now I think it's abou' time you two got back up ta yer common room."

Hagrid ushered them out of the small hut, but Whitney had been lied to enough that she knew when it was happening. But why would Hagrid lie to her about something like this? Did it have something to do with that wrapped, brown package he took from the vault? Of course, that was absurd! They hadn't been in any real danger in Gringott's… had they?

"Bit of a nutter, that one," Ron said as they walked back to the castle together. He tossed his teacake toward an open space of grass where even the birds avoided it. "Talk about mood swings."

Whitney made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. _There's definitely not something right about that,_ she thought to herself. _Definitely not…_

.

"What do you mean, 'broomsticks'?"

Whitney was looking uncertainly at Ron whose face was glowing with excitement as he read off the notice pinned up in the common room one evening after dinner. Ron goggled at her for a second.

"I… I mean what I said. Broomsticks. Are you mental?" he asked her.

Whitney scowled and folded her arms across her chest a little defensively. "Where I come from, broomsticks stay on the ground," she said, feeling self-conscious for her Muggle upbringing. It was a feeling she was growing accustomed to. It seemed that, no matter where she was at any time of the day, someone was telling her something as though she should understand what they were saying. But she didn't.

"Oh," Ron said, looking apologetic. "Right."

There was an awkward silence for a moment or two before Ron immediately switched back to excited. "Well, anyway," he started, "they'll teach you to fly a broom if you've never been on one. That's what the class is for. I wonder if they'll go over Quidditch!" he exclaimed. "Maybe we can play for the team."

"Fat chance," said two harmonizing voices behind them. Whitney turned to see Fred and George looking at Ron with twin grins.

"We've seen you on a broom," one of them said.

"It's embarrassing, really," said the other. Whitney still couldn't quite tell them apart. She knew that one of them had a clump of freckles on his cheek shaped like a star, but they pretended to be each other so often that she couldn't be sure if it was Fred or George.

"Sod off," Ron told them, turning pink.

"Now, is that any way to speak to family?" the first one asked.

"Kiss your mother with that mouth?" asked the other.

They shook their heads disapprovingly at him, winked at Whitney, and left through the portrait hole into the corridor outside.

Ron was in a surly mood for the rest of the night, so Whitney went to bed early, grabbing a hot shower so she wouldn't have to fight with Parvati in the morning about who had used all the hot water up. Nevermind that the water was magic and always came out hot. Parvati always found something to argue about. When there wasn't anything going on that she could complain about, she set herself to _creating_ something. It drove Whitney mad. She and Lavender were always sitting together and talking about _someone_. The pair of them had grown up together, it seemed.

Hermione was little better, always talking about class or some new fascinating fact she'd read. Whitney had to admire the girl's conviction, though. Hermione was determined to learn everything about the new world she'd been introduced to, but all Whitney wanted to do was feel normal in her own skin.

The next day, Whitney dragged herself out of bed at six in the morning, feeling groggy. She'd gotten a lot more sleep than she was used to getting and her body was begging her for more. She shook it off, though. No sense in letting her ability to sleep late spoil her for the summer when she'd have to start getting up early again.

She splashed some water on her face in the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. It had only been a few weeks so far, but she could already notice some changes in her appearance. Her hair was growing in thicker and darker, shedding the strawberry blond from her early childhood. Her eyes weren't as sunken in her head as they been before and her collar bone wasn't poking violently out of her neck anymore. She was looking healthier, and as she smiled at her own reflection, she realized she was also looking happier.

For some reason, this thought induced a small level of panic. _Can't get too attached,_ she thought to herself, dropping her smile. _It could all be gone tomorrow_.

If there was one thing Whitney had learned from living with the Dursleys, it was that good things always come to an end. Even if she managed to make it through the year without dying, going crazy, or getting expelled, she would have to go back to live with her aunt and uncle over the summer. It was important that she remember where she came from. If she forgot that, it would be a nasty shock when she was sucked back in to that life.

Whitney took a deep breath, steeled her expression, and went to get dressed.

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><p>Note: Your wonderful reviews make me excited to post sooner, so here's chapter nine. I was begged in a review not to make Draco such a git in my story. Draco, when he was young, unfortunately <em>was<em> a git. Where Harry wrote Draco off completely, however, Whitney is naïve enough to believe if someone says they've changed. This will be both to her favor and her detriment later in the story, but no more spoilers than that.

I was also asked whether Snape was going to treat Whitney any better than he treated Harry. To this, I say, there are different shades of Gryffindor. The House included James, Lily, Sirius, Remus, Hermione, Percy, the twins, and Neville. Harry, through no fault of his own, makes it very easy for Snape to dislike him because of the sort of Gryffindor he is. Snape will find it much harder to dislike Whitney for who she is, but he will also always see Lily's betrayal whenever he looks at her.

Thank you for your questions, and as always, please review.

/-wujy


	10. Poetry In Flight

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Author Note: I'd like to take a moment to heartily thank all of my reviewers. You are a wonderful group of people and you produce very good questions. You really keep me going.

Also, to all of the readers, because there are a lot more who read than who review: Thank you so, so much! All of you have made this my most successful fanfiction ever, with 20 reviews, 16 favs, 27 alerts, and 2 community adds.

You are all awesome. Thanks so much, and as always, please review.

/-wujy

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><p>Chapter Ten – Poetry In Flight<p>

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><p>"Hurry up, everyone. Each of you stand next to a broom."<p>

Madame Hooch was an elfish woman with yellow eyes and gray, fly-away hair, and she was looking at Whitney as she said this. Whitney—whose stomach was somewhere round her knees at this point—was standing next to a broom, looking helpless. _She keeps looking at me. Why does she keep looking my way?_

"Right!" Madame Hooch, shouted, snapping her attention to all of the students. She reminded Whitney of referees from public schools who shouted at games all day and couldn't help but shout all the time out of habit. "Put your right hands out over the brooms next to you and say, 'Up!' Be firm, now. Show the broom who's in charge."

Whitney swallowed to calm her nerves and said more to herself than to the broom, "How about _you're_ in charge? That sounds like a better plan. I mean, after all, _you're_ the one with the flying experience. I can trust you not to glide into a tree, can't I?"

She hadn't really expected the broom to do anything other than roll over lamely like Hermione's was doing, but the broom slowly rose from the ground until it met with her hand. Whitney's cheeks flushed and she felt a sensation of what must have been pride. She smiled slightly, but Ron was looking at her funny.

"Talk to inanimate objects often, do you?" he teased.

Whitney smiled bashfully and said, "Sometimes they're better listeners than people." Remembering the Sorting Hat, she added, "Sometimes they're better _talkers_ than people, too."

Ron only rolled his eyes at her and breathed, "Barmy."

Made Hooch blew her whistle to get their attention and mounted her broom to show them the correct way to do it. Whitney copied the teacher, gripping the broom so tightly that Madame Hooch had to help her pry her fingers from around the handle. Whitney nodded nervously, sure that her grip now was no longer tight enough to keep her from sliding off the end when she finally got to the flying part.

"Now, kick off the ground," Madame Hooch said. "And kick hard. You can hover a little now, then nudge forward on the end of the handle to go back down." She demonstrated before waving her hands at the students and telling them to try.

Before anyone had a chance, however, Neville's broom started floating away. Panicking, he forgot how to get back down and the broom rose higher, jerking sporadically as it carried its unwilling passenger up. He was level with the second floor windows when he slipped sideways off the broom and came crashing down to the ground with a crunch that Whitney recognized.

She walked quickly over to him at the same time as Madame Hooch, though she kept her distance and only said, "H-He broke something. I-I heard it."

"His wrist," Madame Hooch agreed, seeing its odd angle. "I'll have to take him to the Hospital Wing," she said, gathering him up.

"Any one of you so much as _touch_ a broom while I'm gone," she said, shouting out over all of them, "you'll be expelled before you can say, 'Quidditch.'"

Whitney, still clutching her broom, glanced down to see a small, round sphere. She picked it up from the ground and looked at it. It was filled with white smoke and seemed to glow a little. She started to walk over to Ron when Draco stopped her and quickly snatched the ball from her hand. "What's this, then?" the boy asked, looking mischievous.

Whitney, however, was faster than Draco expected and plucked it from his grasp, retreating further onto the grounds. Draco snarled at her.

"It's Neville's," Whitney said, but she knew that wasn't the point. She simply couldn't think of anything more intelligent or… _intimidating_ to say to make Draco back off.

Draco advanced, waving at Crabbe and Goyle for them to stay back; he smirked at her. He obviously thought he had this one. Whitney looked around at her classmates, but they were all watching the scene unfold. Hermione looked like she was about to go and call a teacher, but no one else seemed to know what to do.

"Why are you doing this, D-Draco," Whitney stammered. Her voice was harsh and low and she was clutching Neville's trinket to her chest for all she was worth. "I haven't d-done anything to you and… and neither has Neville."

"Give it here, Potter," Draco said, reaching for her and ignoring everything she was saying.

She jerked back, feeling trapped, but Draco lunged forward and wrenched the glass ball from her hands, knocking her to the ground in the process. She landed hard on her backside, knocking the air out of her lungs painfully. He walked away toward the Slytherins who were chuckling, but stopped when Whitney choked, "Give… give it back, M… _Malfoy_."

She was on her feet again, looking unhappy. It had taken every ounce of courage within her to spit out Draco's last name and it wasn't nearly as venomous as she had intended. It sounded more like a child swearing for the first time—awkward and a little half-hearted.

Draco's eyes narrowed at her. He didn't seem to like being called his last name any more than she did.

"Oh, this?" he asked, holding it up so that it glinted in the sunlight. "Nah," he said. "I think… I'll leave it in a tree for Neville to find later." He smiled and grabbed his broom, sailing off.

Draco knew how to fly. He rode his broom as though it were part of him. If Whitney hadn't been so completely upset at him, she might have thought his skill on a broom beautiful. As it was, she only disliked him more for it.

She watched Draco, debating whether he would have time to lose Neville's… whatever-it-was before she had time to get a professor.

"Don't you dare," Hermione said, looking at her with disdain. "Don't you even _think_ of going up there after him. You'll get us all in trouble."

Whitney's lips partly slightly in shock as she turned to look at the other girl. Whitney hadn't even _considered_ flying after him. Her mouth clamped shut, lips forming a line of determination. But now she was. She scowled at Hermione.

"I'm getting… pretty tired of people me what to do," Whitney said before mounting her broom carefully and kicking off from the ground, leaving Hermione to glare indignantly at her.

The ascent was the worst part of the experience. Whitney's stomach didn't seem to approve of leaving the ground, so she flew up seemingly without it, unsteady and wobbly on the awkwardly-shaped broom. It was uncomfortable and nauseating and terrifying.

And then she was in the air.

When Whitney discovered that she could steady herself by wrapping her right ankle around the base of the broom, she righted herself and the sick feeling in her stomach turned into pure, unadulterated adrenaline; it went straight to her head. She remembered the feeling of flying on Hagrid's motorcycle—exhilaration and freedom. She almost forgot for a moment that she was in the air for a specific reason. She trained her sights on Draco, who looked at her with surprise.

"Give it back, Malfoy," she said again. Her voice didn't shake when she said it this time, though her face still wasn't quite as stern as she was trying to make it.

Looking at her with a kind of disappointment, Draco shouted, "Catch it if you can, Potter." He threw bauble straight up into the air and made for the ground as quickly as his broom would safely take him.

Whitney watched the sphere as it soared up, peaked at the top of its arc, and then began falling toward the ground again. A ludicrous thought crossed her mind. _I can catch that. I can… I can catch it._

Getting too excited, she gripped her broom too tightly and it jerked to the side uncertainly. "Sorry," she whispered. "Just go, go, go. Please, go!" She relaxed her hold and the broom glided at her touch.

Whitney dove after it the ball as it fell past her in the air. At first, it was quite alarming how quickly the ground was coming up to meet her. Then, she discovered that it was much less horrifying if she focused on the ball _instead of_ the ground. It almost made the ground seem further away. Whitney reached her hand out for the ball and counted down the inches between it and her fingers as she gained on it.

_Five… four… three… Almost there… Come on!_

Whitney's hand clenched around the ball and she forced herself to quickly refocus on the ground, which was surprisingly closer than she remembered it being a moment ago. Instinctively, she jerked up on the handle hard before she became a permanent fixture in the lawn and tucked-and-rolled off of it. She turned end over end on the grass, holding the offending trinket close to her chest, unharmed but a bit shaken.

Whitney smiled a little vaguely as she sprawled out on the ground, looking up into the sky. She was a little dizzy from her summersault and barely heard the shrill voice behind her screeching her name. Her name being shrieked, however, was a very familiar sound, so Whitney snapped up immediately and turned to face Professor McGonagall, trying to fight her initial urge to fall to her knees in tears and promise she'd never do it again.

McGonagall seemed to sense Whitney's fear, so her tone was a little softer when she spoke, though her face was just as livid. "Come with me. Now," she commanded, grabbing Whitney by the shoulder and pulling her along. Whitney had no choice but to go where her Head of House led.

"You. Could. Have. Broken. Your. Neck."

The words were punctuated with hisses from behind the professor's teeth, but they were still loud enough for Draco to hear; he flashed Whitney a smug smile which she barely noticed. Her brain had gone into a hibernation mode. She auto-piloted beside Professor McGonagall all the way into the castle, but her head was busy elsewhere, trying to talk itself out of desperate frenzy.

"Never in all my years…" Professor McGonagall was muttering to herself as Whitney silently went crazy.

_She's going to send me home! Oh, God. Ohgodohgodohgod._ She felt tears threaten to push through her strong exterior. _She's going to send me back to the Dursleys. What was I thinking? How was that _possibly_ a good idea? It's over! Oh, God!_

Whitney didn't even look up when Professor McGonagall stopped and collected an older student who walked with them into a nearby empty classroom. She was so far withdrawn that it took several tries before Professor McGonagall could catch her attention.

"I'm so sorry!" Whitney said immediately as she looked up at the professor, who had clapped her hands directly in the girl's face. "I-I-I don't know… I just did what… P-please don't s-send me home."

"Got 'er in a right way, din't ya, professor?" the older student asked, looking bemused.

Whitney looked confused for a moment, but began to relax when she saw the expression on Professor McGonagall's face was now more impatient than angry. Whitney cleared her throat and tried to straighten herself up.

"No one's being sent home, Miss Potter," Professor McGonagall said. "At least not today." Her tone held an unspoken warning. "This is Oliver Wood, Gryffindor's Quidditch captain," she told Whitney, then turned her attention to Oliver.

Professor McGonagall held her hand out to Oliver and dropped something into his hands. It was the ball that Whitney had caught earlier.

"She caught that after a fifty-foot dive," McGonagall said, and Oliver's face lit up almost instantaneously. "I'll speak with Professor Dumbledore to see if we can find some way around the first year rule," she told him. "We still have no Seeker, so we'll forfeit otherwise."

Whitney simply waited in confusion for someone to tell her what was going on. She looked at the boy unsurely as he beamed at her. "Brilliant," he said, without explanation. "Just bloody brilliant."


	11. Hogwarts, A Nuthouse

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in anyway.

Note: Cut the tip of one of my fingers, so posting is a little slow. Also, my apologies for Fred and George fans. They're not bad, but every time I write them, they somehow end up more like Hikaru and Kaoru from Ouran High School Host Club. XD

As always, please review.

/-wujy

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><p>Chapter Eleven – Hogwarts, a Nuthouse<p>

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><p>Whitney walked to lunch by herself, running late because of her meeting with Oliver. He had spent the past half hour chattering madly about Quidditch, which she believed she was beginning to understand, at least. It wasn't really the most complicated sport in the world, but she was worried about the height. She felt as though she could hardly wait until the next time she was on a broom, but was convinced that the only reason she hadn't died that morning was because the broom hadn't wished to be splintered on the ground along with her.<p>

She sat across from Hermione, which was the only available space at the Gryffindor table other than to Hermione's left or right. The girl seemed to repel other students with a high success rate.

Hermione stared at her for several moments, but Whitney was trying to concentrate only on the food in front of her. She was still a little shaken and certainly still annoyed at Hermione. Although, she supposed, Hermione was still likely irritated at her, as well.

"Are you… all right?" Hermione asked after a few floundering moments during which she'd done an imitation of a fish—opening and closing her mouth in an attempt to find the right words.

Whitney looked up at her and was silent at first. _She's not arguing with me?_ she wondered vaguely.

Finally, Whitney nodded and said, "Yeah, I'm just…"

"Just eating her last meal," Draco said from behind her.

Whitney froze and closed her eyes, trying to reign her emotions in before she turned around to face him. She could already feel her hands beginning to tremble and her breathing tense up. _Come on. Don't turn into jelly now_, she urged herself.

It had already been a long day and Whitney was so tired, that having to deal with Draco one more time to day was close to the worst scenario she could imagine.

"Please, Draco, not now," Whitney said softly, still facing away from him. _Last name, curse you,_ she scolded herself. _Use his last name._

"What's the matter, Potter?" Draco asked. "Can't face me? I told you, Goyle," he said to one of his baboons. "There's really no use in challenging her to a wizards' duel to settle all of this."

Whitney sighed. She knew when she was being baited and Draco wasn't particularly subtle. Still, if biting meant that she could get him to eventually leave her alone, she would give in this time. She turned around slowly. "Settle all of what?" she asked.

"_This_," Draco said, as though what 'this' was should be obvious.

Whitney sighed; she didn't understand, but she didn't care. She rubbed her aching eyes with both hands. "Oh," she said with some sarcasm. "That's cleared up, then." She shook her head. "If I agree, will you leave me alone?"

Draco thought about it for a moment before replying, "If you win."

There was definitely something deceitful about Draco's eagerness to duel her. Whitney could recognize that he had an ulterior motive, but she had no idea what it was. Besides, she'd dealt with cheaters before so, even if he intended to do something underhanded, she would take it in stride.

"Fine," she agreed.

"I'm her second," Ron chimed in from somewhere to her right. Whitney turned to look at him; she'd had no idea he was listening to the conversation or, for that matter, what a 'second' was. She smiled gratefully, though.

"Whatever," Draco said dismissively. "Midnight in the trophy room. If you're late, you forfeit."

"You can shove off now," Ron said, looking murderous.

Draco ignored him, but left anyway.

"You _can't_," Hermione, who had been holding her tongue until this point, hissed from across the table. "You'll get into _so_ much trouble and you don't even know any spells and you can bet that Malfoy's not going to play fair. You _can't_ go, Whitney."

Whitney's eyes narrowed as she looked at Hermione. An emotion she was unfamiliar with took over. "You know…" Whitney began, annoyance peeking through her exhaustion. "You really need to stop that."

Hermione only looked confused by this, but Whitney didn't wait around to explain it to her. She sighed and got up from the table without finishing her lunch, leaving the Great Hall.

Whitney worked her way up to the common room to sit in front of the fire. If she was lucky, she could catch a nap before Charms.

But Whitney had never been lucky. Ron followed her through the portrait hole and immediately began asking her about Professor McGonagall. Whitney looked very uncomfortable and said, "I'm… really not supposed to say. Nothing's really been decided for certain—"

"So you _could_ be expelled?" Ron asked, looking mystified. "_Expel Whitney Potter_? Blimey, Whitney, I never thought McGonagall would—"

"No, no," Whitney stopped him. "Nothing like that. I'm not… not in trouble or anything."

"Oh," Ron said, looking both relieved and disappointed. "Well, that's good, then. So, what are they deciding?"

Whitney cleared her throat, battling with herself about whether she should tell Ron or not about what happened. Before she could make that decision, two hands clapped her on either of her shoulders and Fred and George said, "Congratulations, Whitney!"

"Wood's just told us the news."

"We're on the team, too—Beaters."

Whitney nodded at them weakly. "Thanks, I think. Only I've never played before. McGonagall says… says my dad played when he came to school here, but…"

"So, it's in your blood!" one of the twins said, looking optimistic.

Whitney looked doubtful. "I suppose. I'm not… I'm not very good, though," she said, looking to Ron for help. Ron, however, was looking at her in shock.

"Rubbish!" Fred and George said in unison. "We heard what you did with that Remembrall!" one of them shouted, pinching one of her cheeks painfully. The second twin pinched the other. "Brilliant save, we hear."

Whitney shrugged them off, feeling a bit claustrophobic from the attention and… _nearness._

"She put you on the _Quidditch team_?" Ron asked, clearly stunned. "You… you broke the rules and she… _Quidditch_? _Blimey_, Whitney!"

Whitney smiled and blushed a little. She really had been lucky that McGonagall was the one who had spotted her catching that thing—Remembrall?—instead of, say, Professor Snape. In that case, she'd probably have been expelled without any questions.

"Oh!" Whitney said suddenly, digging into her pocket for the glass ball she'd caught earlier. All this talk had reminded her of something she needed to do. "I have to go and take this to Neville." She looked at the portrait hole thoughtfully before saying to Ron, "I'll see you later tonight, right?"

He nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but Whitney interrupted him. "Thanks, by the way," she said flatly, meeting his eyes. "For earlier, when you said you'd be my second." _Whatever that means…_

Ron stared at her for a moment, uncertain of how to respond, but eventually nodded and said, "Well… Malfoy's a git, so…"

"Oh," Whitney said, looking away, silently berating herself. Of course he was looking for a reason to show Malfoy up. It was understandable. Ron didn't _know_ Whitney very well. They weren't really friends, so it shouldn't have been so surprising that he'd had other things on his mind.

"Well, I'll… I'll see you in Charms then," she said, walking away without looking up at him.

Neville was asleep when Whitney finally found her way to the Hospital Room, so she left his Rememberall on the bedside table next to him and turned to leave. She paused a few feet away from his bed and turned to where the boy lay sleeping.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," she said to the sleeping boy. Neville's chest rose and fell steadily and his eyes moved almost frantically behind his eyelids.

Whitney didn't really intend for him to hear her; she only needed to talk to someone to sort out her thoughts and pretending to talk to someone who was asleep at least made her feel less crazy than just talking to herself.

"A wizard's duel? What was I thinking?" she asked. "I don't even want to go. I only agreed because Hermione told me I couldn't, and I hate it when people tell me what I can't do. But she was right! I don't know any spells yet. I'm going to get myself killed.

"And Quidditch? I really don't know if I can handle being on a broom for more than a few minutes, especially a hundred feet in the bloody air. What happens if I fall? What happens if I get hurt? What if I run into someone else and _they _get hurt? What if they think I did it on purpose and they expel me for attempted _murder_? I won't go back to the Dursleys," she told at Neville, who wasn't listening. "I'll… I'll take my wand and run. I'll be a rogue witch, living off magic and… and… the _land_."

She was silent for several minutes after that. Neville snored at her.

Whitney had to cover her mouth with both hands to prevent herself from laughing out loud. She doubled over, silently wheezing laughter for several minutes. Her ribs were sore, before she finally managed to contain herself.

"Or I'll go completely off my track and start talking to myself," she said, leaving the Hospital Wing and an undisturbed Neville. "I'm totally mental…"


	12. The Set Up

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Author Note: Last night, something wondrous happened. Chapter One of Whitney Potter and the Philosopher's Stone reached 1,000 hits! To celebrate, I'm adding Chapter 12 a little ahead of schedule. Thank you, my darlings, and as always, please review.

/-wujy

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><p>Chapter Twelve – The Set Up<p>

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><p>"This wasn't the best plan ever," Whitney said to Ron at quarter of midnight that night. She was hugging the shadows of the wall outside the trophy room and not looking particularly pleased about the situation. She was tired and cranky and felt surly enough to take on Crabbe and Goyle by herself. She'd get her neck broken, of course, but she wasn't really in her proper state of mind this late at night. She was used to going to bed earlier.<p>

"That's what I said," Hermione said grumpily. She was looking just as upset at having been accidentally locked out of the common room.

"C-c-can we g-go back to the common room?" Neville asked from the other side of Hermione. "I bet the Fat Lady's back in her portrait."

"Go now," Ron said, checking that the coast was clear before leading her into the trophy room and ignoring all of them. Whitney slipped through the door behind him, Hermione and Neville close behind her.

The trophy room was an impressive spread of the castle that, even in the darkness, glinted pieces of moon and candle light all around it. The entire room positively glittered with all of its treasures. Whitney had never been in it before, but Hermione had been able to lead them without too much difficulty. It hadn't taken much convincing, either; Hermione had been happy to come along to tell them how dangerous and stupid they were all being while they ducked through Hogwarts' halls.

The trophy room, Whitney noticed was also spectacularly silent and empty.

"He's not here," Ron said, looking around at the room.

"Stellar deduction," Hermione quipped unhappily. "Proved by his being absent."

Whitney half-smiled, but didn't contribute to the argument that was now taking place. She was feeling nervous enough already and couldn't quite trust herself to speak without throwing up. She still hadn't figured out how she was going to use magic to defend herself. As the silence dredged on—tempered only by Ron and Hermione's whispered bickering—her mood didn't improve. Of course, if Malfoy was a ratfink and had sold them out to Filch, she wouldn't have to worry about that—and that was exactly what he had done.

A noise from the other room made Ron and Hermione fall silent and the sound of Filch crooning to Mrs. Norris made Whitney's blood run cold. Well, that settled that, then. Whitney wouldn't have to worry about defending herself in a duel; Malfoy had sold them down the river.

"Out!" she hissed, grabbing a handful of Neville's robes since he was nearer to her than the other two. She led the way down the corridor with Filch screaming behind them and her feet took her by surprise by navigating the corridors through muscle memory. _Why?_ she silently screamed at herself. _Why would anyone do something like this? _Even Dudley, for all his faults, had never tried to get her expelled. Of course, that was possibly because, with her expelled, he wouldn't be able to torment her during the day…

Whitney glanced over her shoulder to make sure Neville, Ron, and Hermione were still behind her and, when she made sure they could all see her, she ran down another, less familiar corridor which ended in a locked door.

"Oh no," Whitney breathed. She frantically yanked on the lock several times before Hermione nudged her aside and unlocked it with an incantation. All four of them piled into the corridor and locked it once they were on the other side. Whitney pressed her ear to the door and listened carefully for any sign of Filch or Mrs. Norris from her side of it. She felt the door handle twitch under her hand and heard an unsettlingly close voice say, "Still locked, my pet."

Adrenaline was pumping through Whitney's temples, pounding so hard that she barely noticed when Neville tugged on her sleeve. She was concentrating on the sounds of Filch leaving to look for them somewhere else. When she did notice, the tugging had become more urgent and she turned to look over his shoulder… and at the most terrifying thing Whitney had ever seen. "Don't look into its eyes," she hissed at the three of them. She knew enough about dogs from Aunt Marge to know that eye contact was a territorial challenge. She looked down immediately, her eyes falling over a trapdoor at the dog's feet, but she didn't have enough time get a proper look.

Ron fumbled madly with the door latch, his fingers seemingly unable to stop shaking. He managed to get it undone, though, and Whitney fell backward into the corridor, crawling out of the way as Ron slammed the door shut. Whitney was too shocked to make any sound, and everyone but Neville—who was whimpering quietly—seemed to feel the same. The only real thing Whitney found she had the presence of mind to accomplish was pulling herself up from the floor. Wordlessly, she helped Neville to his feet.

The boy seemed absolutely catatonic on the journey back to the Gryffindor common room with his Housemates. As they walked, Whitney gripped his hand tightly and whispered, "Neville? Neville."

Neville looked up at her with rather empty eyes, but he was at least responsive. "You're going to be okay." she told him, though she was looking worried. "D'you hear me?"

Neville nodded, but it wasn't certain whether it was genuine or if he was simply trying to get her to leave him alone. Whitney's hand slipped from his and she planted it on his shoulder. She floundered for words—any words—but finally only said, "I'm sorry."

She turned as they entered the common room and walked up the stairs toward her dormitory, leaving a lost-looking Neville standing next to the fireplace.

"Madness," Ron said, shaking his head as he trudged up the stairs to the boys' room. "Absolute madness."

Whitney couldn't help but agree as she accompanied Hermione up the stairs to the girls' dorm, but her shaky brain was still recovering from the fact that she could have died only moments before.

Despite her exhaustion, Whitney didn't sleep that night. She went to bed and stared up at the ceiling of her four-poster for hours until the sun began to fill the room with golden light, and then she drug herself to the shower. Somewhere during the night, her thought process had boiled down from a reliving of her near-death experience to a single question: what on earth could be so important that it needed to be guarded by such a monster?

Whitney shook her wet hair out of her face and brushed it out, her eyes beginning to droop as the early signs of sleep deprivation took hold. Walking down to the Great Hall for breakfast felt like wading through low tide, her feet were so heavy. Eating helped to alleviate some of that, as did the scalding cup of tea she was drinking when Ron sat down across from her, looking just as tired.

Hermione, Whitney noticed, had purposely sat at the opposite end of the table, looking haughty and occasionally throwing glares in their direction over her pumpkin juice. Whitney couldn't help but think this was a little funny. She'd grown up with people becoming furious with her easily, but never had someone ignored her out of annoyance. It was almost… normal.

Whitney half-smiled at the thought and Ron, catching her eye, grinned back. "Crazy, that, last night," he said, looking relieved that Whitney wasn't as angry as Hermione was.

Whitney let out a "Ha!" and allowed herself to crack a larger smile. "More than," she responded.

Something about the way Ron was smiling made her feel like the night before had been a crazy dream rather than a truly dangerous situation. She found herself giggling uncontrollably, almost madly as she thought about it. Ron laughed with her and Whitney, for some reason, found this even funnier and laughed harder. She doubled over at the table, leaning onto the empty space on the bench next to her and wheezing slightly. She was sure she'd never laughed so hard in her entire life. By the time she was able to gain control of herself, Ron was wiping away tears from his eyes and holding his stomach with one hand. Other people at the table were looking at them strangely and, from across the room, she could see Draco looking livid.

Whitney looked at Ron and said, "I think he's really disappointed that we didn't get expelled."

Ron scowled and started to say something, but was interrupted as a long, thin package was dropped onto the table by six, large screech owls, which then flew away immediately. The package smacked into the bowl of cereal she'd been eating, splashing milk everywhere and drenching her robes. Whitney, with her eyes closed, could hear Ron chuckling again and had the sudden urge to chuck a biscuit at him.

_He'd probably just catch it in his mouth_, she thought wildly to herself, opening her eyes once more. She wiped the mess from her robes to the floor under the table where it disappeared, and then turned her attention to the package.

Whitney looked confused as she removed the note attached to it, then her confusion changed to shock.

"What?" Ron asked, looking worried. She paused before handing the note over to him, but found that she didn't mind him knowing. He already knew about the Quidditch team, anyway.

Ron choked on his breakfast as he read the note while Whitney placed her hands nervously on the packaging. The note had told her not to open it in the Great Hall and she had the sudden urge to run with it and open it without anyone watching. Her nerves about Quidditch were temporarily forgotten as she dwelled on the fact that no one had ever really _given_ her anything before. Hagrid had shown her to things that had already belonged to her, and had bought her an owl for her birthday, she supposed. And the Dursleys always gave her… _something_ on her birthday. But no one had ever given her a proper gift for no reason before, and this was—from the look on Ron's face—a very good one.

Whitney looked up at him with her mouth open and they seemed to come to the same conclusion at the same time. Forgetting their breakfast and their fatigue, they both got up from the table and sprinted from the Great Hall, Whitney carrying the package tightly to her chest.

Their excitement was interrupted, however, when Draco stopped them in the Entrance Hall outside. Whitney had to fight down a sudden, protective urge to punch him in the nose, which was a brand new sensation for her; she'd never wanted to actually _hit_ anyone before.

Whitney frowned at him, but all he said was, "I know what you've got there, Potter. You've got a broom. You'll have it now. First years aren't allowed broomsticks."

Whitney opened her mouth to say something she'd probably have regretted when Professor Flitwick popped up out of nowhere, looking cheery. "Good morning," he said, looking meaningfully between Whitney and Draco.

"Potter's got a broom, Professor," Draco said, looking victorious.

"What, what?" Professor Flitwick asked, looking momentarily stunning by the sudden change of topic. He calmed, however, and smiled. "Oh, yes," he says, remembering. "Professor McGonagall mentioned something about your special circumstances to me. What model have you got?"

Whitney checked the note again and read from it, "A… Nimbus Two Thousand."

"Oh," he said, looking a little lost. "Is that a very good one?"

Whitney looked to Ron, who would know better than she would.

"The best," Ron said. It was obvious that he was loving the look of complete horror on Draco's face. "Top of the line."

"Lovely, lovely," Professor Flitwick said. "Well, enjoy your free day, students," he called over his shoulder, waddling into the Great Hall.

"Uh, come on, Ron," Whitney said, tugging the boy up the stairs with her. She was trying not to look so pleased with herself, but it was difficult not to.

"Okay," she said, looking at him as they climbed the stairs together. "Tell me everything you know about Quidditch."


	13. Snitches and Stones

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Author Note: We're getting ever-so-close to the end, my dearlings, and Chapter Thirteen is about 50% longer than the others, so enjoy, and as always, please review.

/-wujy

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><p>Chapter Thirteen – Snitches and Stones<p>

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><p>Whitney retained much of the information that both Oliver and Ron had given to her on Quidditch, which was a surprising amount. Oliver taught her more about the technical aspect of how to play and Ron went on for hours about the teams and their strong points. Whitney would have shrugged off any other sport, but she found that the circumstances surrounding Quidditch were—like the circumstances surrounding everything in the magical word—far more fascinating than Muggle sports. She could think of little else for the next several weeks and, though she was shaky and uncertain at first, she really was learning better control over her broomstick. It was made easier by the fact that her broom was incredibly intuitive. Of course, sitting on a broomstick for hours at a time was uncomfortable at first, but not any more than sleeping on the floor was, and she'd done that for years.<p>

Even though she had warned herself about it from the beginning, Whitney was becoming more and more attached to Hogwarts and magic and Quidditch as the days went by. It felt more natural than anything in the Muggle world ever had, which was an odd thought when she considered that she hadn't even believed in magic until three months ago.

While Quidditch was a consuming factor in her weekly routine, with practices often enough to keep most of her free time tied up, classes were also a point of fascination. Seriously. Magic. It was incredible and it seemed like there was a spell for just about everything. She didn't memorize course material like Hermione seemed to, but her eagerness to learn magic showed whenever she ended up accidentally overdoing it. Her first few attempts at Hovering Charms had sent her feather soaring up to the ceiling where Professor Flitwick couldn't remove it for hours.

"Really, though," Ron was saying after Charms the morning of Halloween. He was annoyed at Hermione for whatever reason again. She'd barely talked to either of them since the incident on the third floor. "It's no wonder she eats lunch by herself every day. I think her best friend is probably _Hogwarts, A History_."

Whitney rolled her eyes, but said nothing as she noticed Hermione dashing away toward the girls' bathroom, in tears. Guilt hit Whitney almost instantly. Why hadn't she told Ron to knock it off? She knew was it was like to be made so upset that you just want to run away in tears. It was one of the most miserable sensations. Still, she was made very uncomfortable by the thought of going after the other girl. She wasn't sure what she'd do if she did catch up other than stare at her dumbly and try to think of something reassuring to say. After a few moments' pause, Whitney turned slowly to walk to her next class with Ron, looking a little sick.

That evening, Whitney only picked at her dinner for a short while, still thinking about Hermione who was nowhere to be seen. After a few minutes, she dropped her fork onto her plate, looking determined, and said to Ron, "I'm going to go find Hermione."

Ron nodded, but didn't say anything. He looked almost as guilty as Whitney felt.

In the Entrance Hall, Professor Quirrell bumped into her roughly as he swept past her and into the Great Hall, looking slightly more panicked than usual. Scowling as she rubbed her forehead where the professor's elbow had caught her, she turned away and walked down the hallway to the girls' bathroom.

Whitney knocked before she came in, which she realized was silly since there were separate stalls in the bathroom. She walked in slowly, closing the door behind her. Sobs were coming from the last stall on the right and Whitney approached it, trying to make enough noise that Hermione knew someone was there. She cleared her throat to announce her presence and said, "Um, Hermione?"

The sobs stopped and the room was quiet for a moment until a great shuffling and a smash sounded from behind Whitney. She flipped around, hand moving instinctively to her wand, though what she planned to do with it, she had no idea. Still, it thrummed in her hand, comforting her even though her heart was bouncing circles around her chest.

"W-Whitney?" Hermione asked. Whitney simply hissed at her to be quiet, but it didn't seem to matter much as a huge, hulking figure knocked back the door to the bathroom and slid into the room, looking dimwitted but extremely dangerous.

The thing advanced on her, wielding a club that was twice Whitney's width and longer than she was tall. Whitney took two steps back, tripped, and landed on her rear with her wand pointed up at it. She waved it around uselessly, her tongue paralyzed in her head as she attempted to stutter out a few syllables. The wand merely sprayed harmless, gold sparks.

"Oy!" someone shouted from behind the troll. A piece of wood from the broken door knocked the troll in the side of the head, but it paid very little attention. It lifted its club with the intention of turning Whitney into a pancake, which might have been more effective with a wand than she was currently being.

The troll swung its club in a downward arc directly at Whitney, landing with a shower of floor tiles where she had been a second ago. Some self-preservation instinct had kicked in and Whitney rolled out of the way of the club, putting her arms over her head as debris fell around her. Then she quickly got up from the floor and moved toward Hermione who was completely frozen in horror. She attempt to drag Hermione around the troll, which was blinking stupidly in the dust that had yet to settle, but Hermione was not budging.

"Wake up!" Whitney shouted, slapping Hermione in the face in desperation. This seemed to jerk Hermione back into the physical realm, but too late as the troll had spotted them and was lofting his club over its head once more. Whitney looked around for an escape, but they were in an alcove of shattered stones and broken stall doors.

Ron's voice was muffled from the other side of the troll as he shouted an incantation Whitney could barely make out, but it was too late. She closed her eyes as she prepared to accept the blow from the club that would hopefully only maim them _nearly_ to death so they could live in unimaginable agony until Madame Pomfrey could fix them.

When she was not crushed to death and when the troll made a confused 'uhh?' sound. Whitney opened her eyes to see its own club floating in the air, held up by what she could only guess was a Hovering Charm. The dumb creature looked up at it curiously and the club fell out of the air, striking it cleanly in the center of its forehead and falling to the floor, followed by its owner.

Whitney acted immediately, pushing Hermione forward in front of her. "Move!" she shouted, following the other girl out of the bathroom and nearly collapsing on the floor of the corridor.

"What on earth is going on?" Whitney heard from above her, but she was near the opposite wall, dry heaving in a corner and trying not to suffer from death by hyperventilation. She was vaguely aware that she was crying slightly, but wiped furiously at the tears as her petrified lungs caught up with the oxygen supply her brain was demanding.

She tried to speak, but ended up only sputtering a few, disconnected consonants as a headache tore through her head angrily.

_I'm going to have a permanent stutter from living here_, she thought to herself, leaning her forehead against the cool stone of the wall.

She could only point vehemently in the direction of the unconscious troll.

"It's unconscious," she heard Professor Snape tell McGonagall. Whitney could _feel_ his glare from where she was sitting and couldn't bring herself to face him. Her eyes fell somewhere around his knees where his cloak was swept aside to reveal a nasty gash on his left leg. He shifted his robes quickly, covering the wound.

"What were the three of you thinking? You could have been killed!" Professor McGonagall said.

For some reason, Whitney found this at once insulting and hilarious and forgot all about Snape's leg. "Th-Th-Thinking?" she stuttered, trying not to dissolve into hysterics.

"They… weren't in the Great Hall when Professor Quirrell…" Ron began to say, trailing off. "I… I was looking for them."

Whitney could only nod vaguely as she used the wall for support while Professor McGonagall looked sorry. "Well, ten points to Gryffindor for your concern, Mr. Weasley. Now off with you. To your common room."

Whitney thought it was silly to tell them where they should go when there was nothing she wanted to do more than to go to bed. Whitney helped Hermione up to the girls' dorm when they arrived. The other girl was still trembling and Whitney couldn't blame her. When Hermione was in bed, Whitney changed to her pajamas and wrapped herself in her covers, shoving her head under her pillows to block out the world.

Whitney dreamed of trolls flying on broomsticks throwing rocks at her the size of Bludgers that night. They were all on Nimbus Two Thousands and she was riding one of the school's old Cleansweeps. The broom kept bucking her off over the side and she found it increasingly difficult to right herself each time. Finally, she was knocked in the side of the head with a rock-Bludger and thrown clear of the broom.

She hit the floor of the girls' dormitory before she hit the ground in her dream, rubbing her forehead painfully where she landed on the hardwood. Groaning slightly, she got up and proceeded to get ready for school, wondering about her dream. It had been years since she'd had a dream she remembered when she woke up, but her first Quidditch game of the year was fast approaching and she attributed it to nerves.

She glanced at the calendar on the common room notice board and looked at the date of the game for the hundredth time since it had been scheduled a few weeks before. Her face was grim, though she knew she was improving at the sport. She had to be; all she did aside from homework was attend Quidditch practice with her teammates and battle trolls.

She'd formed a good bond with Katie Bell, one of the Chasers for the team who was only one year older and also new to the team. Katie spent more of her time with the other two Chasers who looked out for each other in the air, but Katie understood Whitney's nervousness. She'd confided in Whitney that, even though she'd flown a broom before as a child, the thought of actually playing an official game made her sick to her stomach.

On the day of the game, both girls were sitting together in the locker room, soundlessly turning green as Oliver tried to pep talk them into higher spirits. Whitney barely digested anything he was saying, but walked out onto the field with her teammates anyway. She'd forced herself to drink a glass of orange juice at breakfast and now her churning stomach was reminding her that she'd had very little to eat.

Madame Hooch winked at Whitney as the Gryffindor team lined up across from the Slytherin team, but Whitney couldn't quite force up more than a pained grimace as she mounted her broom. "Glad I didn't eat anything," she told her broom. "Flying vomit is probably worse than the regular kind."

The broom didn't respond… because it was a broom. Whitney quickly pulled her long, auburn hair into an elastic at the back of her head to keep it out of her face, and when Madame Hooch blew her whistle, Whitney kicked off the ground. Though she hadn't kicked very hard, her broom was responsive enough to her touch to rise faster than any other one on the field. The wooshing sensation in Whitney's stomach began to level out slightly and she rose high above the rest of the players, waiting for the Snitch to be released. Madame Hooch blew her whistle again and threw the Quaffle into the air.

After the game, Whitney made a mental note to pay better attention to dreams of falling off a broom if she intended to be on a broom in the near future.

The game started out tame enough. There was some hostility, which didn't surprise her much with the House rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin, but it amounted to little more than some vigorous Bludgering for the most part. However, Whitney spotted the Snitch early on, and found herself bodily blocked by the massive Slytherin team captain. She'd nearly fallen off her broom then, but kept a firm grip and swung her body around with the momentum of her own falling weight. By the time her ears had stopped ringing, however, she'd lost the Snitch.

She soared back into the air, high above the main activity of the game. It was there, more than a hundred feet in the air, that Whitney felt the first jerk in an otherwise smooth flight. Her initial reaction was to panic and she gripped the broom handle too tightly, making the Nimbus jerk upward sharply. Thinking better of it, she forced herself to relax her grip just enough so that it was still firm. The broom jerked again, wildly, and she wrapped her ankles tightly around the base just in time for the broom to take off, zigzagging and rolling and bucking.

In spite of her best efforts to control her emotions and her grasp, Whitney shrieked as the broom made a short dive and tried to roll her off. The base of the broom scraped her ankles painfully and she flipped over the handle, hanging from it by one arm and one ankle. Katie flew up to try and pull Whitney onto her broom and Fred and George circled under her, intending to catch her if she fell. Seeing this, a reckless part of her brain began to aim for one of them and she prepared herself to jump so that she could at least control the beginning of her fall and have a chance at not breaking her neck.

Just as she was preparing to swing away from her broom, however, it jerked wildly again, slinging her around before became placid once more and hovered innocently above her. Grunting with effort, she pulled herself up onto the broomstick again and dove straight for the ground. The Nimbus turned up before she hit the field, rolling her onto the ground where she dry heaved a few times and spat a golden ball onto the ground in front of her. Slowly, forcing air into her lungs, she picked up the tiny ball and flopped over onto her back, holding it above her.

The stadium erupted into cheers. Whitney, exhausted, dropped her arm to the ground after she heard Lee announce the final score, and released the Snitch which was immediately caught up Madame Hooch who had just finished wrangling the Bludgers back into their holders.

Wood rushed over to her and pulled her up from the ground, hugging her tightly as he cheered along with the rest of the Gryffindor team. She smiled tiredly at Katie, who slapped her on the back and allowed the Weasley twins to dance around her in celebration. Here were people who didn't want anything bad to happen to her—didn't want her to be hurt. It was enough to make her tear up.

"It was Snape!" Ron shouted from behind her, but he looked pleased that she was all right, too. "He was doing something to your broom," he told her. The Gryffindors were making too much noise to be able to hear her.

Whitney looked confused and glanced up into the stands where Professor Snape was glaring at her, his robes looking slightly singed. Whitney's scar twinged painfully and she scratched at it.

"You all right?" Ron asked her, looking worried.

"Fine," she said, looking away from Snape. "My scar… hurts sometimes is all."

"Hermione saved you," Ron said, beaming as he led Whitney off the Quidditch field, Hermione following. "She was brilliant."

Hermione blushed slightly, but said nothing as they walked wearily to Hagrid's cabin where he was waiting for them with tea and… cakes?

"Can't 'ave been Professor Snape," Hagrid maintained when Ron told him what had happened.

"Snape was doing a curse, Hagrid," Hermione told him. "I know it. And the second I'd broken his concentration, Whitney was able to get back up on her broom.

"Snape wouldn' hurt a student," Hagrid told her firmly. "He… he jus' wouldn'."

"He doesn't really pretend that he doesn't hate me, though," Whitney said, looking glum. Potions was no less a nightmare than it had been at the beginning of the year.

"Codswallop," Hagrid said, dismissing it. "Dumbledore trusts Snape."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Whitney said, looking annoyed. "Let's count the number of things that have tried to kill me so far," she said. "First, there's Snape who loves to pick me to test his poisons against first year students' antidotes. Second, there are rogue trolls that occasionally make it into Hogwarts on a whim, even though it's supposed to be a safe place. You know, for _students_. Then, for no good reason I can think of, there's a three-headed dog in an abandoned corridor guarding who knows what from who knows whom."

"How do you know about Fluffy?" Hagrid asked, looking at her suspiciously while Hermione and Ron hissed at her to be quiet.

Whitney paused, cringing when she realized that she'd just admitted to being one of the students who'd been chased around the castle by Filch. Of course Hagrid would know about that incident.

"Fluffy?" Ron asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah," Hagrid said, looking a little uncomfortable. "He's mine…"

"You keep a mad three-headed monster in school?" Whitney asked, sounding bewildered. "Where there are _children_?"

"Well, Dumbledore needed him ter 'elp guard…" Hagrid trailed off, clearing his throat. "Abou' time you three headed up ta yer common room, now," he said.

"So it _is_ guarding something. What could be so important that—"

Hagrid interrupted her. "Now, don't be askin' be abou' that. What's down there isn't fer children to know abou', so you forget what you saw an' don't go back to that corridor. That stone is well-guarded and you lot really need ter get goin' now."

Hagrid ushered them out of his hut and shut the door behind him.

Whitney looked at Ron and Hermione, confused.

"Stone?"


	14. Happy Christmas

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Author Note: At the bottom of the page, I addressed a reader review. It's a little lengthy, so I posted it after the chapter, but if you have concerns about Whitney seeming "wimpy" or similar, it's an interesting read. Thank you, my darling readers, even for critical reviews, and as always, please keep reviewing.

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><p>Chapter Fourteen – Happy Christmas<p>

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><p>As the weather grew colder, so did Whitney. For no reason that anyone could discern, the girl sectioned herself off from other people and was generally antisocial. It was just as well that most everyone had left for the holidays. In fact, of the first years, Whitney was the only girl who had stayed. This allowed her to be generally surly in the privacy of an empty dorm room without bothering anyone.<p>

Christmas didn't exactly bring out the best in Whitney. She'd never had a good one that she could remember, and whenever the holidays rolled around, she remembered all of the past ones with the Dursleys. Remembering the Dursleys in turn reminded her that she would have to go back when the summer came around.

She did keep herself preoccupied, however. Ever since Hagrid had slipped up and mentioned that Fluffy was guarding some sort of stone, Whitney had been scouring books about stones and their magical properties. So far, she'd found nothing useful, but she'd directed her frustration toward present-buying. Having money was a vastly new experience for Whitney, but she found that buying gifts for others helped her feel better.

Ron had managed to rope her into a handful of wizard chess matches over the course of break. He was apparently just as bored as she was, and stomping her in chess apparently made him feel better. She won once out of every ten matches or so, but Ron was rather brilliant at the game. She shook her head at him after a particularly quick win and asked, "Aren't you supposed to let girls win games?"

Ron grinned and jabbed, "If you want to win, you should stop being so rubbish."

Whitney normally would have laughed and kicked him under the table, but today she merely raised an eyebrow at him and frowned slightly.

Ron raised both hands defensively. "Don't hex me, though," he said, joking a little.

Whitney gave him her best apologetic look. "Sorry," she said. "I don't like this time of year," she admitted.

"Don't like it?" Ron asked, sounding scandalized. "What's not to like? There's snow and no school and _presents_. I mean, normally I go home for the holidays, but mum and dad went to visit my brother Charlie, instead. He was Seeker before you, you know, but he studies dragons in Romania now."

Whitney couldn't imagine a cooler job than studying dragons, but still hadn't caught Ron's enthusiasm. "I dunno," she said, glumly. "I always have to go out and shovel the walk. It's always too cold to leave the house to get away from my cousin for a bit. And presents?" she asked, pulling a face. "I think last year, I got a sock without a match and a stick of chewing gum for Christmas."

A moment later, she put her hand over her mouth and her eyes went wide. She looked at Ron, surprised that she would admit something so personal about herself. Behind her hand, she flushed pink to the tips of her ears. She cleared her throat and floundered for something to say.

Ron frowned and poked at a quivering lump in his pajama pocket that Whitney knew was Scabbers. "Yeah," Ron said, "I got _him_ last year for a present. That and a sweater my mum knit."

There was something about the way Ron sounded disappointed that greatly annoyed Whitney. She would have been thrilled if someone cared about her enough to knit her a sweater. Now in a slightly bitterer mood than before, Whitney knocked over her king and left the table silently.

On Christmas Eve, Whitney grabbed some toast for dinner from the Great Hall, and ate it on her way back to the Gryffindor common room. She walked straight from the portrait hole to the stairs leading up to her dorm, but Neville spotted her from across the room and waved at her. She paused, not looking entirely thrilled at having been stopped, but tried to put on a smile for him.

"Hey, Neville," she says with as much cheer as she could manage.

Apparently, it wasn't much, because Neville asked, "Is everything all right?"

Whitney sighed. Having to repeatedly explain that she didn't enjoy the holidays didn't help her enjoy them any more. "Yeah," she said unconvincingly. "I'm fine."

"Hm," Neville made a thoughtful noise and looked at her for a moment in silence. "Well, I just noticed you'd been eating in your room a lot. I wondered if you were going to eat dinner with Ron and me tomorrow."

Whitney had intended to skip Christmas dinner entirely, in fact. She bit the inside of her cheeks thoughtfully before answering. "I was just going to work on some school work," she said.

"Oh, come on," Neville urged. "Christmas dinner's supposed to be really great here. They do away with the House tables and everyone sits together. It's nice."

Whitney took in a deep breath and prepared to tell the boy that, as nice as it sounded, she'd rather be on her own, but she stopped. Maybe it was something about how hopeful he looked, or something in herself that longed to have a normal Christmas for once, but she nodded slowly. "All right," she said. "I'll go."

Neville grinned. "Good! I'll see you in the morning."

Whitney watched Neville walk out of the portrait hole before finally turning to walk upstairs to her room. She grabbed a towel and went to the bathroom for a long, hot shower to try to improve her mood. The last thing she wanted was to be foul and spoil everyone's dinner tomorrow. Surprisingly, it did help some. She was feeling a little more human when she went to bed that evening.

The next morning, Whitney was woken up by the sound of a distressed scream. She sprang up in her bed, but of course the dorm was empty. She looked left and right and checked under her bed nervously before getting up and checking the door.

Not thinking to watch where she was stepping, Whitney suddenly found herself falling and sliding down the stairs to the common room, though when the stairs had become a slide she had no idea. At the bottom of the slide, Whitney collided with something rather soft that groaned its protest at having been landed on. As quickly as she could manage, Whitney scrambled off of Neville who had broken her fall, and moved to help him to his feet. She was fighting the urge to laugh.

"Are… you all right?" she asked.

Neville brushed himself off as he answered, "I… I think so. You?"

Whitney let a single giggle slip. "Ah, yes, I think," she told him. "Were you trying to go up to the girl's dorm?"

Neville turned red. "Well, I… It's Christmas morning," he tried to explain. "You were… still in bed, and I… I mean, look," he finished, pointing to the large Christmas tree in the room. "There are presents."

Neville dashed over to the tree and knelt beneath it, but Whitney's amusement turned back to sullen disassociation. _Presents_, she thought to herself. Now that she was focusing on the common room, she noticed a handful of people unwrapping gifts all over the room. Ron was sitting practically beneath the tree, tugging what looked like his annual sweater from some wrapping paper. _I nearly forgot what day it was. There had to be presents, of course. Why couldn't I have just slept through the whole—_

Whitney's thoughts were interrupted by Neville, who was waving a package at her and calling her name. "This one's for you," he was shouting.

Whitney just stared at him dumbly, not moving, as though what he was saying to her made as much sense as Dudley going on a diet. Finally, she managed to squeak a tiny, "…What?"

Neville grinned and waved her over. She silently moved to his side, and he handed her the package which was wrapped in red paper and tied with a string. "I've got… presents?" she asked, turning the package over in her hands.

"Did you expect turnips?" Ron asked her, grinning.

"Well," Whitney said with a half-smile, "sort of." She glanced at Neville, who looked at her knowingly, and she wondered whether he had told Ron about the present she'd received from the Dursleys last year.

She sat on the floor next to the two boys and placed her present on the floor. Carefully she untied it and unfolded the paper from Hermione's gift, which appeared to be a wizarding stationery set. There was a set of parchment decorated with lilies and matching envelopes, a bottle of dark red ink, a stick of gold wax, and a seal with the initials 'WP' on it. There was also several rolls of different-colored ribbon for tying rolled-up letters.

"Ohh," Whitney sighed rather happily. This was so much better than a stick of chewing gum. "This is the best Christmas," Whitney said softly.

Ron laughed a little. "You don't think that's the only one, do you?" he asked her.

Whitney looked up at him, but he was already handing her another package, which turned out to be a wooden flute that Hagrid had apparently carved himself. She looked at the flute with slightly watery eyes. She'd never played an instrument before, be resolved to learn.

"I think I know who that one's from," Ron said, turning a little pink and pointing at another rather lumpy gift. He handed it to her and she set it in her lap for a moment before opening it. Year after year, she had watched Dudley's pile of presents grow in size and number, but she was so grateful for her three. She took her time opening the package, savoring the feeling of ripping paper beneath her hands.

She nearly cried out when she saw that Ron's mother had knit her a sweater, too. She pulled it on over her head, its emerald green contrasting delightfully against her auburn hair. She hugged herself and used the sleeve of her new sweater to wipe at some stray tears. "It's brilliant," she said to Ron, offering the two boys some of the homemade fudge that had been included in Mrs. Weasley's gift.

Neville took a piece and in return handed her a flat package. When she took it from him, she knew instantly that it was a framed picture. "I got it from my gran," Neville said, and Whitney looked confused.

She opened the package, wondering what Neville could have gotten from his Gran for her, and her fingers froze in midair when she saw what the picture contained. All of the air left her lungs as she studied the photograph.

Two pregnant women sat next to one another in rocking chairs, both with their hands folded over their stomachs. On the left was a proud-looking woman with black hair and the same round face as Neville, and the other woman had Whitney's auburn hair and dazzling green eyes. Behind the woman on the left stood a man with an honest face and a receding hairline, one hand on his wife's shoulder. They waved at Whitney, smiling. Next to the red-headed woman, one arm around her and the other resting his hand on her stomach, crouched a man with mess, black hair and glasses. Both had tears in their eyes.

Neville's voice sounded like it was coming from far away as he explained. "Those two on the left, those are my parents," he told her, though it was obvious. "Gran said they went to school with your parents, but they were in different years and didn't know each other very well. They got to be good friends later on, though."

Whitney's fingers traced over the picture of her parents and a few droplets of moisture fell onto the glass. She sniffed and wiped the tears off the photograph and then off her face.

"Neville," she said softly, failing to find the words to describe just how much this gift meant to her. Instead, she leaned over Hermione's gift and put her arms around his shoulders. He patted her back a little awkwardly, clearly not sure what to do with the affection. He threw an uncertain glance over Whitney's shoulder, through her hair at Ron, who grinned and shrugged at him. She let him go a moment later, looking a little embarrassed, but entirely pleased with the Christmas presents she'd received.

"This is really the best Christmas," she repeated, hugging the picture to her chest. "Oh!" she realized, jumping up. "I almost forgot!"

She dashed away, leaving Ron and Neville looking confused at one another. She returned a few moments later with gifts for each of them. Ron's gift was a collectible Chudley Cannons figurine. A small Chaser, whose name was unfamiliar to Whitney, had been bewitched to fly around a thin metal rod set on a wooden stand.

Ron turned a little pink when he unwrapped the gift. He'd seen it in the Quidditch shop in Diagon Alley and knew how much it had cost her. "This is wicked," he said softly, watching the figure circle its axis.

For Neville, she had bought something that looked much like a watch, but with a compass on it instead of a timepiece.

"It comes with these instructions," Whitney said, handing him a small pamphlet and pointing to an incantation. "You cast this spell on something and the compass will always point to it. It's meant for people who lose their wands, and for children who wander off, but I thought you could use it on Trevor. I got it from an article in the Daily Prophet," she admitted, "so I hope it works the way it's supposed to."

Neville laughed a little. "Now, I just have to _find_ Trevor so I can put the spell on him," he said, shaking his head. "Thanks."

"Oy!"

Twin voices behind Whitney signaled the arrival of Fred and George who were looking particularly jolly. "Look," said one of them. He was wearing a knit sweater with an 'F' sewn into it, which probably meant he was George. "Whitney's got a Weasley sweater, too!"

Whitney grinned at the pair of them. "It's really great," she said. "No one's ever made me anything before."

"Come on, Ron," said the brother in the 'G' sweater, "put on your sweater."

"Yeah," said the other, waggling his eyebrows. "Everybody's doing it," he jokingly enticed.

Ron grumbled as he pulled his on over his head, muttering something about how much he hated maroon.

"Oh, it doesn't look that bad," Whitney insisted. "Could be worse. It _could_ be orange, and then where would you be?" she teased. "You'd look like a carrot with a pimple."

"Gee," Ron said darkly while his brothers both doubled over with laughter. "Thanks."

When Fred could breathe again, he pointed at Ron and instructed, "Don't be late for dinner. We're dragging Percy away from the Prefects."

"Yeah," George agreed. "Christmas is a time for family. That goes for the lot of you," he added gesturing to Neville and Whitney, who looked very pleased.

"Wouldn't miss it," she said quietly, and the twins wandered off through the portrait hole. Whitney turned to Neville and Ron. "There's a couple things I want to do before dinner," she told them. "Meet you down here around five?"

"Deal," Neville said, and Ron nodded.

Gathering all of her presents, Whitney walked up the stairs to the girls' dorm. She set her things on her bed and grabbed a quill, ink, and parchment from her bookbag. Picking a sturdy book to put the parchment down on, she flopped onto her bed to begin writing thank you notes to Mrs. Weasley and Neville's gran.

She grabbed her pillow and pulled it down to lie on top of it, and was surprised to find a small, wrapped bundle underneath. She looked at it curiously. "Another present?" she wondered out loud to herself. She sat up and took the package in her lap, reading the card that had been left with it. "Use it well?" she wondered out loud. "It doesn't look particularly warm… It's sort of shiny, though."

Looking confused, she tossed it around her shoulders and went to go and look at it in the mirror. Whitney had never received clothes as a gift before, unless you included too-large hand-me-downs and old socks. She wasn't particularly vain, either, as looking in the mirror generally meant look at the same, old Whitney she always saw. The cloak, however, proved her wrong in this; she definitely did not see her plain self wearing a shiny cloak. In fact, she barely saw any of herself at all.

Whitney gasped and her hands flew to her chest, her arms, her stomach, patting every invisible inch just to make sure all the parts were still attached. They… _felt_ like they were still there. She licked her dry lips and looks down at herself, seeing more of the same nothing as before. Her eyes crossed and she suddenly felt a little ill and off-balance. Vertigo grabbed hold of her and knocked her to the floor, where she sat for a moment, dizzy.

Safe on the ground, she took a moment to adjust to looking where her feet should be and seeing nothing. "A cloak that makes you invisible," she said out loud to herself, wonder in her tone. "I love magic."

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><p>Author Note: Here is that review and its response.<p>

Review:

"i feel a little bad for saying this, bc you said this is based on you, but whitney wanting to throw up when anything goes wrong is just plain annoying. the tears when she almost died with the troll this chapter, yes, that's what i would imagine whitney's reaction should be. but i mean, who's THAT queasy that that's their first go to reaction when things are bad, it honestly makes me feel like you're trying to hint at bulimia or something. you just mention it ALL the time! i also can't really seem to find anything too different on how she's treated differently by others for being a girl, though that's what you said you would be writing. the only one that's seemed to be different so far is whitney/harry herself, and so far it's only been that instead of being a bit more calm and collected during crazy stuff, she cries and wants to puke. i would hope that that's not actually what you see as a difference between a boy and a girl 11 year old, and that you're going somewhere else with that, bc if having her be a girl just means wimpier, that's not cool. i get that your trying to show how the abuse affects her more than harry, but i think you do that well enough with her other characteristics like being all shy, etc, without needing to make her just so...sad and wimpy. the story's well done and everything, but i don't really think that you got how the world would a treat a girl differently at all, you've only really changed her character, and there's nothing really wrong with that except that you point out at the beginning that you're supposed to be doing more than that"

Response:

"I was prepared to tell you that I've only written Whitney feeling sick twice in the story, but as readers often see things that writers do not, I searched through the story to see how many times I had used the word 'stomach.' I found a startling number. Many were innocent, but I found that I use the phrase, 'sinking sensation in her stomach,' and similar turns (i.e. 'cold, twisty feeling,' and 'worried weight in her stomach') a great deal more than I should.

I would, however, not consider these phrases as indication of nausea, and I'm certainly not hinting at any eating disorders. I use the phrase to induce an emotion akin to dread, rather than actual vomiting.

I would also agree that you don't see how much different she's treated by others at first. You may not even see a great deal of it in the first book, but it will become very obvious later on. For now, the biggest example is her relationship with Hagrid, who doesn't bond quite so easily to a girl.

I do not, under any circumstances, wish to imply that the hero of the stories would be 'wimpier' were he a girl. I would probably, however, consider an eleven-year-old me to be wimpier than an eleven-year-old Harry. I think for a child his age, the books portrayed him as too calm and collected. I never thought it was realistic. But, Whitney will grow stronger and quite fast. If anything else, she adapts to her surroundings, and in the following chapters, she grows so attached to Hogwarts and the magical world that she will let nothing take them from her.

At this stage in the story, Harry hasn't received a lot in the way of worldly or media attention. When that part of the story comes up, that's when you'll see the difference. I know that's quite far ahead in the future, however, so my apologies if my description was misleading.

I appreciate your review. It's nice to hear some actual feedback that makes me take a look at what I'm doing and see things I need to change.

/-wujy"


	15. A Name and a Desire

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Note: My sincerest apologies for not posting this sooner, my lovelies. I've worked 16 of the last 17 days, and have had little time to think about posting. However, here is installment 15. As always, please review.

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><p>Chapter Fifteen – A Name and a Desire<p>

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><p>After several minutes of looking herself over in the mirror, which was a bit silly since she couldn't see herself at all, Whitney carefully folded the Invisibility Cloak and beneath her pillow. She looked around her room for a moment, at first forgetting what she had come up here to do in the first place, but remembered suddenly and smiled.<p>

She retrieved her new stationery set, took a quill from her school bag, and grabbed her Transfiguration book to write on. Sitting on her bed, she composed two letters—one to Mrs. Weasley, and one to Neville's gran, thanking them for their wonderful Christmas presents. After every major, gift-giving holiday, Petunia had always made Whitney write her thank you letters to friends and relatives, and it was one of the chores Whitney had gotten quite good at. It was also one of the few chores she had ever gotten any praise for. Not from Petunia, of course, but when someone would thank the woman for the beautiful thank you note, it always reflected a little on Whitney.

Where the letters she wrote for Petunia, however, were rather generic, the ones she wrote now were far more personalized. Whitney smiled as she wrote her thanks, trying to keep the letters simple, but honest. When she was finished, she placed both letters in envelopes decorated with lilies, sealed them with the gold wax, and stamped the wax with the seal. Whitney had never really enjoyed "pretty" things before, but the letters were quite so. She tucked them into her robes, put away her stationery set, and left the tower for the Owlery.

On her way out of the portrait hole, she thought about the Invisibility Cloak and who could possibly have given it to her. The note said it had belonged to her father, whom Whitney hadn't thought much about over the past few years until recently when Hagrid had told her he'd been murdered. James Potter, to her, had always been the man that her Aunt Petunia's sister had married, but now he was slowly becoming the man she could think of as a father.

James Potter had been a Gryffindor and a Seeker, just like Whitney, and even though she couldn't remember him at all, she felt a glow of pride when she thought about that. He had also owned an Invisibility Cloak, though how he'd gotten it and how he'd used it were still mysteries. She found herself longing to know more about him, but without any idea of how to do so.

Sighing, she left the castle and crossed the snowy estate to the Owlery, trudging through waist-high snow with some difficulty. At the door, she removed her wand from her sleeve and cast a warming charm to clear enough space to get inside. The Owlery was a massive stone tower, and the sound of the closing door echoed throughout the structure, sending feathers rustling and eliciting disturbed noises from the owls.

"Sorry," Whitney said, walking up the stone stairs and looking for… well, she hadn't named the owl, yet.

She recognized her on sight, though, and smiled warmly as she approached the alcove where the white owl was resting. "Hello, lovely," Whitney whispered to the owl, who peered at the girl through one, skeptical eye. The owl made an unimpressed noise, but allowed Whitney to gently rub the space on top of the owl's head. "I know I haven't visited you often," Whitney told the owl, "but I hoped you might deliver these letters for me."

The owl opened its other eye and blinked at Whitney expectantly. Whitney chewed for a moment on her bottom lip, but the owl didn't move even to allow her to attach the letters. The girl cleared her throat, not sure how to continue. She'd never actually seen anyone send a letter by owl before.

She held up the two letters and asked, "Would you mi—"

The owl interrupted Whitney with a moody noise that sounded—to Whitney, at least—dismissive.

"Oh, I'm… I'm sorry," Whitney tried to say, before resorting to flattery. "Please won't you help me, pretty owl? I've never seen an owl with such sharp talons, or more perfect… beak." She struggled to find more ways to compliment an owl, but her eyes fell on the decorative envelopes in her hand. "Your feathers are the color of lilies," she rambled on. "My mother's name was Lily, you know, and she was… quite beautiful, too. In fact, I shall call you Lily. Would you like that?"

The owl's expression, nearly as easily interpreted as any person's, was intrigued at Whitney's offer. After a moment of silence, she nipped at Whitney's fingers and held out one leg for the letters to be attached to. Elated, Whitney exclaimed, "Oh, thank you!"

She fastened the letters to Lily's leg while talking. "You probably just wanted a name, didn't you?" she asked Lily. "I'm so sorry I hadn't thought of one before now. I'm rubbish, sometimes, but I'll be better. You'll forgive me, won't you, Lily? And you'll take these letters? One to Mrs. Weasley, Ron's mum, and one to Ms. Longbottom, Neville's gran?"

Whitney immediately looked forlorn at this. She looked up from the letters to Lily. "Oh, but how will you find them? I haven't got the addresses. I never thought to ask." She slapped a hand across her forehead just as Lily took flight and flew through a glassless window in the tower. Whitney just watched her go, speechless at the sudden departure, then she frowned.

"Wait…" she said to herself thoughtfully. "Owls can't read anyway, can they?"

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><p>Hoping her letters would arrive safely, Whitney left the Owlery for dinner, which turned out to be a rather splendid affair. Hagrid had expended a great deal of effort in making the hall look magical… apart from the usual enchanted ceiling and floating candelabras, that is. The food was better than any Whitney could ever remember having eaten, and everyone was in high spirits for the holidays. None more so than Fred and George, it seemed, who were attempting to feed a very unhappy Percy whose arms were forcefully pinned to his sides by a blue Weasley sweater.<p>

The festivities were over far too soon, however, and Whitney stumbled back up to Gryffindor tower with Ron and Neville, all three too full of food to be talkative. Whitney, feeling sleepy after the feast, waved to the two boys as they parted ways for their respective dormitories. Fully-clothed, she flopped down on her bed, unable to help the dreamy smile on her face. If every year at Hogwarts was like this, she thought, she could stomach anything the Dursleys could dish out during the summer.

Sighing, she wrapping her arms around her pillow, freezing when her hands met silvery grey, feather-light fabric. Her tired brain clicked back on with excitement as she remembered the Invisibility Cloak. She had nearly forgotten!

Despite moments ago having been ready to turn in, adrenaline pumped its way into her veins and she could think of nothing else but testing out her father's cloak. She pulled the cloak out from under her pillow in handfuls and threw it over her shoulders. It was so light it felt like wearing a fine layer of clouds. She tugged the hood up over her head and swept out of the common room once more. Whitney had the run of the entire castle, she realized, and no classes in the morning for which to wake up early; it was time to explore.

Since she had arrived at Hogwarts, Whitney had been fascinated by its intricate and ever-changing layout. Each quirk of its curious blueprints must have had a story behind it, telling of one of the thousands of students who had walked the halls of this castle since it had become a school centuries ago. Tonight, Whitney let her feet carry her wherever they wished.

She spent a few moments with her leg trapped in a sinking stair between the third and fourth floors, dodged around a hall that Peeves was occupying for what seemed like the purpose of covering the floor in a thick syrup, and discovered rooms upon rooms of abandoned books and classroom equipment.

Whitney adored the sensation of being invisible. It wasn't necessarily a tangible feeling, but more of a knowledge that she could go anywhere and do anything she wanted. It wasn't until quite early in the morning, around three or so, that she finally began to lose steam. Exhaustion set in, but Whitney realized that she had no idea how to get back to her room. She tried retracing her steps, but it seemed that the stairs didn't always lead back to the way she had come. Trying not to panic, she ran down corridors, nothing but the sounds of shoes slapping against stone to belie the fact she was even there.

She stopped near a suit of armor in a hall that ended in a window, and moved to get a look outside, convinced that she could find her bearings if only she knew on which side of the castle she was. A clatter behind her and a high-pitched cackle startled her, and she froze in place, looking around. Filch's angry voice could be heard shouting at Peeves, and it was close enough that it made Whitney slip into a nearby classroom. She was invisible, of course, but if Filch were to walk into her, it would be very difficult to explain. She closed the door gently behind her and pressed her ear to the door to listen for any signs of the caretaker, but as she turned her head to listen, her eyes fell upon the solitary occupant of the room.

The mirror was rather magnificent. It was nearly as tall as the ceiling, framed ornately in brass, and seemed to give off an ethereal glow. Almost hypnotically, she moved closer to the mirror until she was standing in front of it, and what she saw there was nothing that she expected.

Instead of seeing nothing, Whitney saw herself standing with a man she recognized. He was the man sitting with her mother in the picture Neville's gran had sent. His messy, black hair, round glasses, and charming smile were unmistakable. He stood with his hands on Whitney's shoulders, though she could feel nothing behind her. She reached a shaking hand up as though to place it on one of his, and while her hand touched nothing but her own robes, the hand in the mirror grasped her father's. A dizzy feeling like missing a step going downstairs settled in Whitney's stomach. Unable to form any other conscious thought, she could only force herself to stammer one word.

"F-father?" she asked softly, disbelievingly.

It couldn't be, could it? Her father was dead. But then, perhaps that was the mirror's secret—to show the departed.

Whitney shook her head, and so did her reflection. "Then, where is my mother?" she wondered aloud. If the mirror showed deceased loved ones, it should show her mother, as well, shouldn't it?

The very moment she thought it, Whitney's mother materialized in the mirror. Both were smiling happily at her, and the Whitney in the mirror turned to hug both of her parents. She looked happier and healthier than Whitney knew herself to look, and the girl fell to her knees in front of the mirror, bruising her shins. She watched for what seemed like hours as the family in the mirror sat to dinner, went to the park, watched evening television together, and got ready for bed.

She didn't budge an inch, couldn't tear her eyes from the visions before her. This was all she had ever wanted, and though it wasn't real, watching it unfold was the sincerest form of magic she'd ever experienced.

"That is beautiful yet terrible magic of the Mirror of Erised."

Whitney whirled around, the hood of her Invisibility Cloak dropping down around her shoulders. When her eyes fell upon Professor Dumbledore, she took a step back and tripped, falling hard on the stone floor. Looking aghast, Whitney struggled for words to explain to the Headmaster why she was out of bed after curfew and why most of her body was invisible. It hadn't even occurred to her to ask how he had known she was there.

With a slightly amused twinkle behind his spectacles, Professor Dumbledore waved a hand at the girl for her to relax, and she stopped trying to get up from the floor. Whitney looked up at the Headmaster silently, invisible legs bent up into her invisible chest, invisible arms wrapped around them. When it became obvious that she wasn't going to break the fragile silence, he did.

"The Mirror of Erised, Whitney, is a dangerous and marvelous magical artifact. Have you discovered what its secret is?" Professor Dumbledore asked the terrified girl.

Whitney, hoping that giving the man an answer would help prevent her inevitable expulsion, stammered over her answer. "I… I wanted to see… I mean, it showed me my… dad. And, when I saw him, it made me want to see…" She looked back at the mirror where her parents were waving at her. "My mum," she finished slowly. "It shows you… what you want to see."

Whitney was startled into looking at Professor Dumbledore by the sound of his small chuckle. "Very nearly," he agreed with her, his amusement dimming somewhat to seriousness. "The Mirror shows us the greatest desires in our hearts. In your case, you long for a connection to the parents you never knew, and the Mirror shows you one."

Whitney sighed and rested her chin on her knees. "It's only a picture," she said slowly, but then she smiled. "Neville gave me a picture of them today. Did you know them?" she asked the Headmaster. "They went to school here, didn't they? And you've been Headmaster for a long time?"

Professor Dumbledore's light chuckle returned at the inadvertent reference to his apparent age. "I knew them," he answered softly, "but tonight is not the night for stories, I'm afraid."

Whitney looked very disappointed, and then very afraid as she remembered that it was _probably_ a night for punishing rule-breakers instead. She scrambled to her feet in front of Professor Dumbledore, a floating head rising to waist-level.

"Go back to your dormitory, Whitney," the Headmaster said kindly, "and do not go looking for the Mirror again, for it is being moved elsewhere tonight."

Whitney looked uncertainly at the door. "I don't… remember how to get back," she admitted.

"Oh, I think you'll find that, in Hogwarts, help comes to those who ask for it," he said with the barest hint of a wink. "Now pull up that hood of yours. Off you go."

Confused, Whitney did as she was told, her head disappearing under the cloak. A moment later, the door opened and closed seemingly by itself, and Whitney was gone.


	16. Not Weak

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Note: I got a good question from a reviewer for last chapter about the reason Whitney saw James in the Mirror before she saw Lily. For anyone who's interested in my response, I've posted it below this chapter.

Additionally, I should mention that, at the end of this chapter is the scene between Snape and Quirrell in the woods. Some of the dialogue is straight from the book, though I tried to keep the flavor text unique.

* * *

><p>Chapter Sixteen – Not Weak<p>

* * *

><p>Whitney kept her encounter with Dumbledore and her experience with the Mirror of Erised to herself for the next several days. She wasn't sure what to make of it. She had been caught out of bounds after hours by the Headmaster himself, but he had merely looked amused through his half-moon spectacles and told her to scurry on to bed. While she had no intention of ignoring the Headmaster's warning against searching for the Mirror again, she longed to see her father's face again. She spent hours locked in the girls' dormitory with the photo Neville had given her for Christmas.<p>

When the holidays ended, however, and the girls started trickling back to the school, Whitney wasn't able to hide so easily, and reluctantly rejoined the populous. Ambushed by Lavender into discussing which dress she should wear to her first feast back at school, Whitney quickly picked the one with the most frills—which pleased Lavender—and slipped into the common room. She frowned when she heard intermittent laughter broken by Hermione's indignant voice calling for order, and quickly descended the stairs to see what the matter was.

Whitney gasped and turned red and angry in the face when she saw Neville hopping across the common room, his legs bound together with magic. She stood back as Hermione undid the curse, and listened to the two of them talk.

"Neville!" Hermione exclaimed. "What happened?"

"Nothing," he said rather stiffly, turning pink in the face.

"Not nothing, Neville," she said sternly, shaking her head. "Someone _did_ this to you."

Neville groaned. "It doesn't matter," he said, getting to his feet

Whitney stepped forward now and cleared her throat to get Neville's attention. She was a little pale, but her cheeks were still pink. "Was it Malfoy?" she asked in a quiet tone. Scattered around the common room, their Housemates were pretending not to listen.

Neville merely straightened his robes, eyes on the floor. It was all the answer Whitney needed, though she wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Draco, who had been so nice to her when they'd first met, was nothing more than Dudley with a wand.

Whitney looked down at her own wand in her hand. Dudley had always been stronger than her; he'd always made her feel weak and outmatched. But Draco? Draco wasn't any stronger than she was. Not here, with magic. She gripped her wand hard, and little, red sparks left the tip.

Whitney glanced up at Hermione, who was staring at her with pleading eyes. Hermione shook her head slightly, but Whitney turned on her heel, robes flying around her, and headed for the portrait hole.

Once she was outside in the corridor, Whitney realized that, not only did she not know where to find Malfoy, but that she didn't know what she was going to do when she _did_ find him. She stood in the hall outside the Gryffindor common room for a moment, deciding between searching the dungeons and simply checking the Great Hall.

She had decided on the Great Hall and was turning to walk away when a hand laid itself on her shoulder. Whitney froze and bit back an angry comment before turning to see Neville standing behind her. He dropped his hand to his side and looked at her for a moment.

"He's not worth the points you'd lose," Neville said slowly.

Whitney shook her head. "You don't understand," she said. "Boys like him never stop. They poke you and prod you like an animal in a cage." More sparks fell from her wand and her hands began to tremble with years of stored emotion. "They think they're too smart and fast to get hurt, but if just once that animal could bite back."

A final, angry shower of sparks erupted from Whitney's wand.

"I _do_ understand," Neville told her with sad eyes, and she couldn't help but believe him. Her grip on her wand loosened and a faint trail of steam slowly leaked out of it.

"You're better than him, you know," Whitney said stubbornly.

Neville didn't reply. He merely jerked his head in the direction of the common room. Whitney sighed, slipped her wand up her sleeve, and followed him back into the common room.

* * *

><p>As the second Quidditch game of the season came around, Whitney felt familiar butterflies return to her stomach. Professor Snape would be the referee, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that. On the one hand, he'd tried to kill her in the last game, but on the other, he would be in plain view of everyone watching. Surely he wouldn't be able to pull something with the eyes everyone in the school on the field, could he?<p>

She didn't have much time to think about it, however, since Oliver was working the team harder than ever. More nights than not, Whitney went to bed exhausted and slept dreamlessly for a few hours before rising with the sun and preparing for class. She was really becoming a pro on the broomstick, though. There was nothing Whitney loved more than the rush of adrenaline she got from flying, and that alone drove her to excel.

Catching the Snitch, however, was a bit more difficult. After hours with her hands wrapped around her broomstick, especially in the cold rain that had been plaguing their practices, it became harder to force her cold, stiff fingers to grasp the Snitch. Angelina, one of the Chasers, lent her a pair of leather fingerless gloves for the game against Hufflepuff, and Whitney found they helped immensely.

She tugged them on before the match and flexed her hands a bit, enjoying the feel of the broken-in leather against her skin. She startled slightly when Oliver knelt in front of her suddenly and looked up into her eyes. _Pretty eyes_, Whitney decided, then turned slightly pink.

Oliver was looking serious and a little sick. "Now, we know that Snape doesn't really like Gryffindor _or_ Hufflepuff," he told her, "but he _really _hates us, so we can bet on him favoring the other team. I need you to catch the Snitch before he has too much opportunity to do that, all right?"

Whitney smiled. "Whatever you say, Wood," she said without thinking about it.

Oliver smiled at her. "That's my girl," he said with a nod, then went to go tell the Weasleys off for… something. Whitney couldn't really hear what they were talking about for the blood that had rushed to her ears. She shook her head slightly and went to go splash some water on her face. She ran her fingers through her hair, which had become a slightly darker auburn over the past several months, and pulled it up into a tight tail at the back of her head.

"All right, lions!" she heard Oliver say from behind her. "It's game time."

Whitney grabbed her broom and checked that her wand was securely stowed in her sleeve before heading out with the rest of the team. Some of her elation at her conversation with Oliver was undercut by the nasty expression on Snape's face, but she kicked off from the ground into the air, and forgot everything but the task at hand. The Bludgers and Snitch were released, then the Quaffle, and the game began.

Whitney spotted the Snitch so quickly that she thought she must be mistaken and glanced a second time. It was so near to Snape that it could have been a watch or a button. But hat glimmer was unmistakable and the Hufflepuff Seeker was on the other side of the pitch.

_I can catch that_, she thought to herself, just as she had the first time she'd rode a broom. _I can. I _can_ catch that._

She grinned to herself and fell into a spectacular dive. Her ponytail whipped around her shoulders and neck, leaving tiny welts that she would later display proudly. The wind rushing under her glasses brought tears to her eyes, but she didn't dare blink. Air whistled so loudly in her ears that she couldn't hear the gasping, or the cheering, or the fighting that was going on in the stands.

For the briefest of seconds, her eyes flitted toward Snape to make sure she wasn't in danger of colliding with him. She barely registered his look of shock as she locked her fingers around the Snitch, a scarlet blur marring his vision for a mere instant.

"Up," she verbally urged her broom, pulling up sharply on the handle and banking to the side to avoid slamming into the ground. She spiraled back into the air, arm outstretched above her with the Snitch beating its wings madly to escape.

* * *

><p>Whitney was lighter than air as she went to take her broom to the shed after the excitement had died down. She had been great, and being great… well, it was a great feeling. She had impressed everyone, even Dumbledore who had come down from the stands to congratulate her personally. Somehow, though, she was happier with thought of impressing Oliver, who lifted her onto his shoulder with tears in his eyes. He had dropped her, to be truthful, but even the bruise she would have from falling seemed like a victory scar. Aside from Snape and most of the Slytherins, everyone had cheered for her—even the Hufflepuffs who had lost. It seemed to be popular opinion that if anyone was going to beat Slytherin for the Quidditch Cup this year, it was going to be the new Gryffindor team.<p>

Whitney could have danced. Just as she was about to spin in a happy circle, however, movement in the darkness toward the Forbidden Forest caught her attention. She knew that limp. She glanced to the Gryffindor Tower, where she could see fire glow coming from the windows, to the forest, and made a quick decision. She frowned and hopped back on her broom, flying toward the shadows.

Looming in the air, hugging the treetops to avoid casting a Seeker-shaped shadow on the ground, Whitney watched shrewdly as Professor Snape hobbled into a clearing where Professor Quirrell was waiting for him.

"…d-don't know why you wanted t-t-to meet here of all p-places, Severus…"

"Oh, I thought we'd keep this private," Snape said. His voice felt like wet sandpaper against the back of Whitney's neck. "Students aren't supposed to know about the Philosopher's Stone, after all."

_Philosopher's Stone_, Whitney thought to herself, filing the term away. _That must be what Hagrid was talking about._

She hovered as close as she dared, but still couldn't hear anything further until Snape interrupted Quirrell.

"Have you figured out how to get past that beast of Hagrid's yet?"

"B-b-but, Severus, I—"

"You don't want me as your enemy, Quirrell."

Whitney slipped her wand from her sleeve into her hand silently as Snape approached Quirrell with menace. She knew she would only be able to get off a single curse, and nothing that Snape wouldn't be able to undo with a thought, but she felt safer with it in her hand anyway.

She strained her ears to hear what was to be said next, which was probably the reason that the owl in the tree below her startled her. She nearly lost her grip on her wand, but some instinct kept it at her fingertips. By the time she could think about anything by dying a horrible death in the Forbidden Forest, she had missed much of the conversation going on below her.

"We'll have another little chat soon," Snape was telling Quirrell, "when you've had time to think things over and decided where your loyalties lie."

Whitney had heard enough, and Snape was preparing to leave the clearing. She turned her Nimbus 2000 back toward the broom shed, the night chill spreading eerily through her scarlet robes.

* * *

><p>Note: Here's that review and response.<p>

my-imagination-is-running: "Was there a reason behind why Whitney saw James first, and not Lily? The way I see it is that you were making Whitney slowly become closer to her father than mother - as oppose to Harry who was much closer to his mother than father."

wujy: "There are a couple of reasons she saw James first. Originally, it was simply because she had very recently been thinking about him after receiving his cloak.

However, Whitney also has felt rather weak her entire life, and would give anything for a father figure's approval."


	17. Norbert

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Note: This chapter is largely character development and a good example of how different Whitney and Harry are.

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><p>Chapter Seventeen – Norbert<p>

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><p>Snape and Quirrell all but faded from Whitney's mind when she finally reached the Gryffindor common room that night. The Weasley twins has managed to steal snacks and drinks from the kitchens, and everyone was celebrating. Whitney was clapped on the back, cheered, and complimented. A group of fifth years jokingly bowed to her. She couldn't help but smile, though the extended attention was making her a little uncomfortable.<p>

When everyone had greeted and thanked her, they went back to their partying and she tucked herself into the corner near the fireplace next to Ron, whose lip was bleeding. Whitney's mouth dropped open slightly and she leaned forward to wipe some blood away, but Ron shrugged her off. "What happened?" she asked.

Ron grinned at her, and then winced as his split lip protested. He chuckled a little. "I gave Malfoy a black eye," he told her.

Whitney was both surprised and amused. "What?" she asked. "When?"

"While you were diving at Snape," he told her. "Neville tried to take on Crabbe and Goyle by himself. He's out cold, but Madame Pomfrey says he'll be all right."

Whitney fought the urge to jump up and run to the Hospital Wing. It was after hours, and even if she went, Madame Pomfrey would never let her see Neville. She took a break and exhaled, giving Ron a half-smile. "Did he at least get in a few good ones?" she asked, and Ron laughed.

"Yeah," he said sarcastically. "I think Goyle's really learned his lesson."

* * *

><p>After the conversation she had overheard, Whitney felt like it was time to talk to Hagrid again. He clearly knew what was going on with this Philosopher's Stone, and the teacher who had tried to kill her had started threatening the stuttering Defense teacher. Whitney knocked heavily on Hagrid's door three times and stood back to let him wrangle Fang so he could answer the door.<p>

There was a crash, instead, and no barking from Fang. "Be there in a mo'!" Hagrid shouted from behind the door, the scraping of moving furniture accompanying his voice. A few minutes later, he opened the door and peeked his scraggly head out, looking down on Whitney. Whitney had her arms crossed over her chest and was looking rather annoyed.

"Oh," Hagrid said slowly, his eyes shifting nervously, "uh, it's you."

Whitney's eyebrows knit together, which doesn't quite have the intense effect on the face of an eleven-year-old than it would on someone older. "Yes," Whitney replied. "It is. And I need to talk to you about—"

"Well, now's no' really a good time fer a chat," Hagrid told her, starting to close the door.

Whitney, who eight months ago would have gone quietly, was indignant at the dismissal. When the door was almost closed, she said quickly, "Philosopher's Stone."

The door froze, an inch from being shut. "How d'you know abou' that?" he asked in hushed tones without opening the door.

"Let me in," she told him. She heard Hagrid's massive sigh from the other side, and the door slowly opened to admit her.

Whitney loosened the collar of her robes upon entering. It was a warm spring day, anyway, and Hagrid had the fire stoked up to a stifling degree. She nearly gagged from the taste of the thick, hot air in the room. She glanced at the fireplace, but there was a wooden table in front of it. "You should be careful," she said idly to him, pointing at the table. "It's too close. It might catch fire."

Hagrid muttered something she didn't quite make out, but sat down and offered her a tea cake. She shook her head and looked at him seriously. "After the game last night, Professors Snape and Quirrell met in the Forbidden Forest," she told him. "Snape threatened Professor Quirrell. He wanted to know what else was guarding the Philosopher's Stone. He means to take it, Hagrid," she finished.

"Codswallop," Hagrid said, and Whitney wondered what on earth _that_ was supposed to mean. "Professor Snape wouldn' try teh steal it. He's one o' the ones helpin' teh guard it."

Whitney bit her lip. "I'm only telling you what I heard with my own ears, Hagrid," she said, squirming in her robes, which seemed to be growing heavier every moment she was in this active volcano.

"Well, yeh heard wrong, an' you ain't s'pposed ter be in the Forest in th'first place," he told her, trying to sound cross, but looking far too guilty for that to work. His eyes shifted to the fireplace for a brief second, but Whitney noticed and turned to take a closer look. She could see, sitting in the flames, a round, black egg.

"Ugh, Hagrid," Whitney said, looking mildly repulsed. "What are you _cooking_?"

"I'm not cookin' it!" Hagrid exclaimed, sounding offended. "I'm _hatchin'_ it," he said before he could stop himself.

Whitney's mouth dropped open as she tried to swallow what he was telling her. "Hagrid?" she asked slowly. "What's in that egg?"

Probably realizing it was too late to lie to her again, Hagrid said rather weakly, "It's… a dragon. A Norwegian Ridgeback, ter be exact."

Whitney turned to look at Hagrid, who was looking rather dreamily toward the fireplace. Whitney pointed a hand at the table in front of it. "I suppose there's a reason you were hiding it?" she asked.

Hagrid blushed beneath his beard. "Well, technically, yer not s'posed teh _own_ one," he said, moving over to put the table back in its place. He began to stoke the fire more, but Whitney was edging toward the door, unable to stay in the heat much longer.

On the other side, Whitney leaned against the door and sighed. "Brilliant. Just bloody brilliant."

* * *

><p>While Whitney contemplated what to do about Hagrid and his illegal dragon, her teachers dumped more and more homework on them as they prepared for exams in a couple of months. Whitney chewed on her bottom lip as she sat with Ron in the library, trying to remember where nettles were commonly found without looking it up.<p>

Ron, distracted from his homework so easily, looked up at Whitney and asked, "What kind is it, even?"

Whitney had made the mistake of telling him about the dragon egg. Ron seemed equal parts horrified and excited, but Neville wanted nothing to do with anything so dangerous and illegal, and Hermione merely frowned walked away every time Ron asked another question. It was why they were studying alone today.

Whitney shrugged. "I think he said it was a Ridgeback. A Norwegian Ridgeback."

"Those are really rare," Ron went on. "My brother Charlie works with them in Romania. Wild ones, of course, since it's completely illegal to own one. Is he going to keep it?"

Whitney snorted. "I think he intends to, but his house is made of wood, so I don't think it'll end well. I wish Hagrid would just go to Dumbledore about it."

"He'd get the sack for sure," Ron said.

Whitney shook her head, remembering Dumbledore finding her at the Mirror of Erised. "I don't know. Dumbledore caught me out of bed after hours a few nights ago, and he just laughed and told me to go to bed," she told Ron.

He laughed. "Well, that's 'cause you're you, isn't it?" he asked, making her blush angrily. Ron didn't seem to notice her expression. "What's he going to do? Expel Whitney "The Girl Who Lived" Potter?"

"Quit it, Ron," Whitney said as quietly as she could manage, but he went on.

"The Ministry'd call him senile and boot him."

Whitney huffed and stood up from her seat, grabbing her book. "You're a prat, Ron," she told him, storming away.

* * *

><p>It was three days before Whitney spoke to Ron again, though it wasn't for his lack of effort. Knowing he'd upset her, but not sure why, Ron made a few weak attempts at conversation, but Whitney didn't want to explain why she was upset. She didn't really know why she was upset, in honesty. She'd never gotten upset at things people said to her before, so why now?<p>

Three days, Whitney decided, was long enough to be angry. She caught up with Ron in the common room where he was being forced to study with Hermione. She stood next to the table with her arms crossed over her chest until he noticed she was standing there, which didn't take very long since he seemed to be trying to look anywhere but his homework.

Looking a little uncomfortable at being stared down by Whitney, Ron greeted her with a quiet, "Er, hullo."

Whitney tried to soften her expression, and she dropped her arms to her sides. She was about to tell Ron that she wasn't upset anymore, but before she had the chance, Lily flew overhead and dropped a letter on the table. Frowning thoughtfully, Whitney picked it up and read the messy handwriting. She looked at Ron with wide eyes.

"It's hatching," she said before running off. Ron dropped his quill and followed her, leaving a stunned Hermione behind him.

* * *

><p>In the days that followed Norbert's hatching, Whitney had been bitten burned by steam twice, and nearly bitten a half a dozen others, yet she still kept going back, trying to convince Hagrid to talk to Dumbledore about it.<p>

"Well, 'e'd send 'im away," Hagrid said indignantly.

"Yeah, but somewhere he should be," Whitney urged. "Somewhere safe with other dragons like him. You want that for Norbert, right?" she asked. "If you talk to Dumbledore, I bet he'd even give you time off for visiting every year."

"But, look," he fought lamely against Whitney's reason. "He already knows 'is mummy."

And, indeed, Norbert was currently attempting to chew his way through "mummy's" boot.

"Hagrid," Whitney said as softly and kindly as she could manage, "he's eventually going to get so big that you can't hide him anymore, and then you'll be in a _lot_ of trouble. So much that maybe even Professor Dumbledore can't help you, then."

Hagrid deflated, sighing so heavily that his chair creaked beneath him. Whitney, sensing a break in his resolve, fished a piece of rough parchment, a quill, and some ink out from under the scorched remains of an old blanket, and set them in front of Hagrid, who began to write.

Whitney waited patiently for Hagrid to be done, but it was a short letter so it didn't take too long. She took it and folded it very carefully, tucking it up one sleeve. "I'll send Lily," she told him. "She's quick and she'll make sure no one else gets it."

Hagrid looked miserable, but nodded anyway.

"Norbert's going to be all right," Whitney told him, sounding confident. "Maybe he can even go and live with Ron's brother, Charlie, in Romania. I bet Charlie'd let you visit loads."

She patted one of his giant shoulders with her tiny hand, and left the hut behind, headed straight for the Owlery. When she was finished, she went back to Hagrid's hut and sat with the man in silence—broken by the sounds of Norbert attempting to breathe fire—until Dumbledore arrived.

He smiled kindly at the two of them. "Ah, yes," he said slowly, closing the door behind him. "I thought I recognized the owl, Miss Potter."

Whitney looked a little uncomfortable. She'd only spoken with the man once before, and she wasn't sure if she should address him or not. She smiled, anyway, and Dumbledore dodge around Norbert to have a seat.

"He's a magnificent specimen, Hagrid," the Headmaster commented. "Wherever did you come across him?"

Hagrid couldn't meet the Headmaster's eyes. "Won 'im," he said. "I won the egg in a card game down at the Hog's Head."

Whitney, accustomed to terse conversations, inserted herself into this one. "Hagrid was thinking maybe Ron's brother in Romania. That way he might visit sometimes."

Professor Dumbledore, who hadn't apparently expected Whitney to speak up, looked over at her behind his spectacles, a bemused expression on his face. "We could ask," he agreed.

"Hagrid's not going to get into trouble, is he?" Whitney asked, looking a little worried. "He did the right thing in the end, right?"

Dumbledore chuckled. "Oh, no one's in trouble here. I'm afraid that Hagrid's going to be Groundskeeper at Hogwarts for a long time, yet," he told her, and Hagrid perked up a little at this. Whitney smiled in relief. She wasn't sure if she would have been able to handle the fact that she'd gotten someone fired from his job and kicked out of his home.

"Although, Miss Potter, Hagrid and I have a few arrangements to make for the departure of the young dragon in question," Professor Dumbledore said meaningfully, "and I'm sure that you have a Charms essay to finish."

Whitney blushed, aware that she was being dismissed in the most polite way possible so that the adults could speak. She nodded. "I'm sure I do," she answered, and then left for the castle.


	18. Unicorn Blood

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Note: I foresee two more chapters after this one, possibly three, and the first installment will be complete. Thanks to all of my loyal readers. As always, please review.

/-wujy

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><p>Chapter Eighteen – Unicorn Blood<p>

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><p>When she wasn't studying or practicing Quidditch, Whitney spent a great deal of time with Hagrid over the next few days, trying to help him get over his loss of Norbert. She drank the tea he offered—which was occasionally just hot water that he'd forgotten to add tea to—and ate the cakes he offered—which were often as inedible as tiny boulders—and very slowly, Hagrid's mood seemed to improve. After nearly a weak, he had brightened so much that he'd agreed to teach Whitney to play the wooden flute he'd given her for Christmas.<p>

Feeling mildly excited, Whitney carried the flute down to Hagrid's hut. When she arrived, however, Hagrid was stoic and even Fang, sensing his owner's emotions, didn't bark at the door when she arrived.

"Oh, Hagrid," Whitney said after he'd handed her a cup of steaming water. "I thought you were beginning to accept that Norbert _had_ to go to Romania to be with other dragons."

Hagrid took the cup from her to add tea to it, and shook his head. "It ain't that," he told her. "Much as I miss the little blighter, I know 'e's in a better place. No, it's… it's summat else. Summat's been killin' unicorns in the Forest."

With as much as she had seen and learned over the past few months, Whitney was still relatively surprised that unicorns existed. More so, she was surprised that something was killing them. "Oh," she replied. "Do you… I mean, is there a way to stop it?"

"Short of goin' out there an' findin' whatever it is?" Hagrid asked. "Nah, me an' Fang'll have ter do it. I just can't think what could even catch one."

_Don't do it_, Whitney told herself, even as she felt the emotion bubbling up in her. _Don't you dare do—_

"I'll go with you," Whitney said. _Ah! I told you not to do that!_

Hagrid was silent for a moment as he watched the girl, his expression turning hopeful. "Yeh'd really go?" he asks. "I mean, it'd be dangerous, an' I'll have ter get Dumbledore's approval fer yeh to be in the forest"

Whitney took a deep breath and released it slowly. "Of course," she replied, unable to say no to the grateful look on Hagrid's face. "I'll see if anyone else wants to help," she offered.

_Oh, god, stop talking. You're volunteering yourself and your friends to go into the forest at night!_

"Hermione's wicked smart, and Ron and Neville…" Whitney's voice trailed off as she tried to think of a single reason they'd be helpful in the woods. "Well, it'd be good to have a few more pairs of eyes looking out?"

The last came out as more of a question than she had intended, but Hagrid didn't seem to notice. He was swelling pride, and the damage had already been done. "All right, then," Whitney said uncertainly. "I'll go and talk to them now."

* * *

><p>"I can't <em>believe<em> I agreed to this."

"Shut up Ron," Hermione told the boy, as she clutched her wand to her chest uncertainly.

Neville, apparently, was too terrified to put his two cents in to the conversation, and Whitney walked next to him looking just as pale.

Hermione had agreed based on the educational value of the trip, but the look on her face made it clear that she would rather be doing anything else but walking down to Hagrid's hut right now. Ron, Whitney had spoken to while he was eating and therefore distracted. Neville… Well, Whitney wasn't really sure _why_ Neville had agreed to come. He looked uncertain when he'd agreed, and looked sick now that the task was at hand.

Whitney was glad that none of them had back out, though. She half-expected at least Ron and Neville to bolt back to the castle when they'd gotten halfway down. She wanted to run, too, but cared more about not letting Hagrid down than she did about her own fear.

Whitney knocked on Hagrid's door three times, and the enormous man opened it, dragging Fang out by the collar. "Lookin' good, you lot," Hagrid said approvingly. "Ready ter go inta the Forest?"

Three sets of eyes glared at Whitney, but she swallowed her nerves and nodded to Hagrid, answering for all of them. "We're ready."

"Good. Off to it, then."

Hagrid led the three students plus Fang into the Forbidden Forest, where the trees overhead made the air around them several degrees cooler. Whitney pulled her robes closer as a chill set in, but set her expression to be as stony as she could manage. At a fork in the path, Hagrid paused and turned to face the group.

"All righ'," Hagrid said to them, "this'll be where we split up."

"S-Split up?" Hermione asked shakily.

"Only way we'll find the unicorn 'fore mornin'," Hagrid confirmed. "I'll take two o' yeh, and two will go with Fang. If summat happens an' you need me, send up red sparks from yer wand. If yeh find the unicorn, send up green, understand?"

Neville scooted closer to Whitney and grabbed a handful of her robes. "All righ', then," Hagrid said, pointing to Neville and Whitney. "You two with Fang. I hafta warn yeh, though. He's a bloody coward."

Fang whined slightly, but Whitney scratched him behind his ears confidently. "Don't get off the path, now," Hagrid added, before pointing Whitney toward the left fork. She cleared her throat and walked away, fingers tucked under Fang's collar and Neville still clutching her robes.

The walk through the forest was largely in silence. Whitney was constantly straining her ears to listen for the sounds of anything dangerous, and Neville—she suspected—was keeping his mouth shut in order to keep from vomiting. After a few feet, Whitney disengaged Neville fingers from the cloth of her sleeve, and took his hand tightly in hers.

"I c-can't believe w-we're in the F-Forbidden Forest," Neville stammered after ten minutes of walking. Something in a bush nearby moved, and both of them jumped slightly, wands in hand. Fang whined, but nothing emerged, so they kept walking.

Whitney slipped on something underfoot and fell hard on her knees, landing on a raised tree root. She cried out in pain, holding her bruised and bleeding knee, but looked down to see what she had slipped in. She dragged two fingers through a pool of silvery liquid, and then wiped it off on her pants.

"What's that?" Neville asked, but Whitney shook her head and accepted his help in getting up.

"No idea. Come on. Let's keep going."

Fang took a sniff of the liquid and pulled forward suddenly, moving to another puddle, and another.

"Or maybe it's what we're looking for," Whitney amended. "Fang seems to know where we're going now, anyway."

They followed the hound until they reached the edge of a clearing. "Look," Whitney said to Neville, though she wasn't sure why she was whispering. "I think… That must be it. The unicorn."

The beautiful, white beast lay on the ground, a stark contrast to the darkness of the Forest. Whitney raised her wand and green sparks sprang from it, into the sky.

Neville grabbed her robes again, but didn't say anything, and Whitney looked immediately back to the unicorn. A figure in black was hovering over it and…

Whitney covered her mouth to not be immediately sick. Someone, she was sure, was drinking the unicorn's blood. She took a step forward to be sure, and her shoe snapped a twig on its way down. In the quiet forest, the noise sounded like a shriek, and the hooded figure froze. Its face turned up and looked at the pair of them. Faster than Whitney could have thought possible, it crossed the clearing toward them, arms outstretched.

Pain tore so violently through Whitney's head, beneath her scar, that she screamed and fell back, knocking Neville over. Through eyes blurred with pain, she could barely see something enormous jump over them, charging down the hooded figure.

After a single, shocked second, Whitney went into panic mode. "Up! Up, up," she urged Neville, pulling him to his feet. Fang was nowhere in sight. She slipped her wand from her sleeve and threw up red sparks, and then held it before her as the large creature returned for them.

"Lower your wand, childling," said a deep voice, and Whitney's mouth dropped open as the full image of what had saved them could be seen in the moonlight.

"You're a… You're a centaur!" she exclaimed, sounding daft. Meanwhile, Neville was trying to crawl away, tugging furiously on Whitney's robes as though to drag her with him.

"You're in danger," the centaur replied, reaching out and lifting her off the ground. Whitney made an indignant noise at being picked up like so much dead weight, and the centaur turns toward the trees. Before the he could leave the clearing—and Neville-behind, however, Whitney hit Firenze in the shoulder as hard as she could, but the centaur didn't seem to notice. He made to run through the forest, but Whitney hit him again.

"You can't just _leave_ him!" she shouted at the centaur, gesturing at Neville. "You can't just leave him behind. Put me down! What's going on!"

Firenze paused, then, and came to a stop, looking over his shoulder at her. "Darkness lurks in these trees. The sooner you leave the forest, the better."

"Excuse me," Whitney repeated, poking Firenze harmlessly in his side with one finger. "I am not a doll, and you can put me down anytime now."

Unencumbered by her weight, Firenze seemed to have entirely forgotten he was even holding her. He put her down on her feet next to a silent Neville, where she turned to look up at him. "And what do you mean, 'darkness lurks'? That was a man. I saw him with my two eyes."

Firenze looked sternly at her. "Perhaps once," he said, "but it is a terrible thing to kill a unicorn, and worse to drink its blood. Any man who does can no longer call himself a man, for he lives a cursed, half-life from that moment on. A man who is near to death, with nothing in life to lose, could drink it and yet live." He looked around and over his shoulder toward the clearing. "It's not safe here."

Whitney, however, still had questions. "Why would anyone drink it, then?"

At that moment, Hagrid came stumbling through the trees, nearly out of breath, with pale Ron and Hermione behind him. When Hagrid saw the centaur, however, he exclaimed, "Oh, it's only you, Firenze! I saw the sparks an' thought summat bad had happened."

Firenze blinked placidly at Hagrid and replied, "Something _has_ happened, groundskeeper."

Without another word, he reared around and raced off into the forest, leaving Hagrid looking very confused, and Whitney very frustrated. She turned to Hagrid abruptly. "Trolls! Brooms! Nutters who drink magic blood! Why does it seem like everything here is trying to kill me?"


	19. The Strength Within

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Note: This, the second to last chapter, does contain a few lines of dialogue taken directly from the book, but only three or four sentences. Enjoy, and as always, please review.

/-wujy

* * *

><p>Chapter Nineteen – The Strength Within<p>

* * *

><p>Hermione slowly lowered her hands from her face. "The Philosopher's Stone is… well, I mean it was created by this alchemist called Nicholas Flamel. It can turn any metal into gold, and… Oh, it all makes sense. It can produce the Elixir of Life, which can cause the drinker to live forever."<p>

"How does that make sense?" Ron asked.

"If you were about to get your hands on the Elixir of Life, you wouldn't mind drinking a little unicorn blood in the meantime," Whitney said slowly.

"But Snape seems fit as a fiddle," Ron said. "As much as it pains me, he doesn't seem to be close enough to death to risk being cursed by unicorn blood."

Hermione looked a little surprised. "That's a good point," she replied. "Maybe he's working on getting the Stone for whoever's dying."

"But, if you're dying, why not go to the hospital?" Neville asked suddenly. "Why tromp around the forest, where there're centaurs to chase you down, and werewolves to chew you up?"

"Werewolves?" Whitney interrupted, looking horrified.

Neville blushed. "There're rumors, anyway."

"It doesn't matter," Hermione said. "Whoever's in the forest doesn't matter. What matters is that Snape's trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone for someone so evil they'd kill a unicorn. And it doesn't matter, because we'd all be insane to do anything but tell Dumbledore."

Whitney was silent as she rubbed her scar with one hand, remembering how badly it had hurt earlier that evening. She cleared her throat and looked at Hermione. In a soft, scared voice, Whitney told her, "I think it does matter. I think it matters because I think I know who's in the forest."

* * *

><p>"What do you mean, he's gone?"<p>

Whitney was standing in front of Hagrid's door the Sunday afternoon following their trip into the woods. Ron was with her, but Neville was crawling his way through a Potions essay and Hermione was studying everything, possibly at the same time.

"Went ter the Ministry o' Magic jus' this morning," Hagrid answered, "an' before yeh ask, I don' know why."

"But we have to talk to him _now_," Whitney insisted. "When will he be back?"

Hagrid eye her suspiciously. "What're on about?"

Whitney paused before she answered, but decided that if any teacher was going to help her, it would be Hagrid. "Snape's trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone so he can give it to Voldemort, who's waiting in the Forbidden Forest."

_That's the most insane-sounding thing I have ever said_, Whitney realized, cringing at the look on Hagrid's face. Ron and Hagrid both winced when Whitney said Voldemort's name, but Hagrid turned several shades of red.

"Now, you listen," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. "Most o' the teachers in this school've put up defenses to guard the Stone, not that anyone lookin' ter steal it could get past Fluffy in the firs' place. Ain't nothin' safer'n the Philosopher's Stone, d'yeh hear me?"

"But, Hagrid, what if someone finds out how to get past Fluffy?" she asked. "Someone who already _knows_ all of the other things protecting it?"

"Codswallop," Hagrid answered, and Whitney found the phrase more annoying each time he said it. "Nothin' puts Fluffy down, 'cept a bit o' music now an' then, an' _no one_—"

Hagrid stopped suddenly, realizing what he'd said. Furious with himself, he wagged a finger at the pair of them, "Now don' the pair o' yeh go askin' questions like that. An' do go anywhere near that Stone, I'm tellin' yeh!"

He slammed his door, making the windows of the hut rattle. Whitney looked to Ron, who looked nervously back at her. "That was too easy," she said.

Ron nodded his agreement. "If you can get it out of him, Snape sure can."

Whitney smiled a little guiltily. "I didn't really mean to," she responded. "He just… says things he shouldn't when he gets flustered."

Ron grinned for a moment, but then remembered the seriousness of the situation and frowned nervously. "So, what do we do now?"

Whitney's expression turned serious once more. "I… really don't know. But, Dumbledore is gone, and… I bet we should probably do whatever it is we're doing tonight."

* * *

><p>Getting out of the girls' dormitory without Hermione noticing was difficult since she was studying late, but when she finally went for a shower near midnight, Whitney grabbed her Invisibility Cloak and headed for the door. She heard the shower turn on, and looked back at the bathroom door with some hesitation. She didn't want to leave Hermione behind, but she didn't want to put in danger someone who didn't want to go anyway. Letting go of a held breath, Whitney left for the common room where Ron and Neville were waiting for her.<p>

"What took so long?" Ron hissed at her when she was downstairs. "Snape's probably got the Stone by now."

Whitney scowled at him. "I came as soon as I could," she said defensively. "I had to wait for Hermione to leave the room."

"I don't see why we couldn't tell her," Neville said. "I bet she'd come with us.

"Now, we'll have to walk down to the third floor corridor after hours," Neville said, looking apprehensive.

"Hermione shouldn't have to be dragged into this just because she feels obligated to help," Whitney said to Neville, "and I can get us to the third floor without being noticed."

Whitney smiled and pulled the Invisibility cloak from under her arm. "Anyone with second thoughts?"

Ron and Neville stared as she spun the cloak around her shoulders and disappeared from the neck down, and both wordlessly shook their heads. "All right, then," Whitney said. "Let's go."

* * *

><p>The next several hours of Whitney's life happened so quickly that she could later only remember them as a whirlwind of sound and color. A year before, had someone told her that her life of dodging bullies and walking to school alone would be replaced with killer plants, charmed chess pieces, and walls of fire, she would have had nightmares for weeks. As it was, with Neville's knowledge of devil's snare, Ron's prowess at chess, and her own proclivity for word puzzles, Whitney found herself under an adrenaline-supported calm. Ice ran through her veins as she stared down a doorway filled with dangerous, black flames.<p>

For the first time, doubt crossed her mind. She doubted herself. To this point, she'd had Neville and Ron beside her, watching her back. Now, however, she was alone again. It was familiar a feeling, being alone, and now that she had experienced what it was like to stand with friends, she missed it. She looked back at the purple flames where Neville had disappeared, and longed to call him back, but Ron needed his attention more than she did.

"Oh, god, what am I doing here?" she asked herself, facing forward again. At best, Snape, who had made Potions a nightmare for her all year, and who was in league with the man who'd killed her parents, could be on the other side of this door. At worst, Voldemort himself was waiting for her. Unsure whether she had the strength to face what was before her, but knowing she had to, Whitney closed her eyes tightly, took a deep breath, and stepped forward.

She was silent as her eyes adjusted between the blackness of the fire and the light of the torch-lit chamber on the other side. She blinked hard at the back of a familiar purple turban, its wearer focused on the Mirror of Erised in front of him. Professor Quirrell turned slowly to look at Whitney, a half-surprised smile curling his lips. "I wondered whether I'd be meeting you here tonight, Potter," he said, no trace of his stutter.

Whitney said nothing. She was both stunned and confused.

"Come now. You came all this way and have nothing to say?" he asked, amused by her silence.

Somehow, Whitney found her tongue. "I thought you'd be Snape," she said dumbly.

"Snape?" Quirrel asked, laughing. "Bleeding heart wrapped in a crunchy, brooding shell. He wouldn't have the nerve to serve the Dark Lord as I have done."

"So Voldemort _is_ in the forest," Whitney said, her voice soft, and tremor lifting the statement almost into a question.

"How dare you speak his name!" Quirrel shouted, flicking his wand. Ropes sprang from nowhere and bound Whitney in place. Fear sprang into her heart, and she tried to struggle against the restraints, but there was nowhere to go. Her eyes flicked around the room and found nothing but the Mirror of Erised.

Thinking aloud, she asked no one in particular, "Wh… Where's the Philosopher's Stone?"

Quirrell laughed derisively. "You always did do your homework, Potter," he said. "It's not here, clearly." He continued speaking, though Whitney got the distinct impression he was no longer speaking to her. "I know the mirror's the key to finding the stone, but I don't understand. What does this mirror do? Help me, master!"

Whitney's blood ran cold even before she heard the voice the answered the call. Her breath caught in her throat.

"The girl… Use the girl…"

Quirrell looked over his shoulder at Whitney, clapping his hands once. The ropes dropped away from her and she stumbled unwillingly to the mirror as the man stepped aside.

Whatever Whitney had suspected she would look like in the mirror, it wasn't the scraped-up, scared-looking eleven-year-old girl she saw in the mirror. She felt taller, for some reason, and possibly stronger than the scrawny witch of her reflection. Even as she thought it, she watched her reflection grow in both confidence and stature, winking at her reassuringly. As she watched, Ron and Neville materialized in the mirror, standing at her sides, and she felt a rush of warmth at the thought.

"What exactly d'you expect me to see here?" she asked Quirrell, looking at him with more audacity than she possessed on her own.

"She sees nothing, master," Quirrell said aloud, ignoring her.

"Let me speak with her… face-to-face…"

"Master, you are not strong enough!"

"I have strength enough… for this…"

Whitney took a step toward the mirror as Quirrell turned on the spot, letting his turban down. Her fingertips rested on the glass behind her, cool to the touch, and she swallowed a scream at the sight of the face glaring from the back of Quirrell's head.

"Whitney Potter…" it whispered. "I know what you see… when you look into the mirror. You see friends… You see family… You see love and connection. Join with me… and I can bring back what you have lost."

"What… what I've lost…?" Whitney had a sudden image of herself with parents who cared for her.

"What you've lost…" Voldemort confirmed. "Magic can do many… incredible things. Help me find the stone… and I promise to bring them… Your parents."

Whitney felt tears threaten her eyes, but some words bubbled to the surface instead. "What I've lost?" she repeated, her voice steadier. "You mean what you stole!"

"Ah, bravery…" Voldemort chided quietly. "I remember bravery… in the actions of your father… The eyes of your mother. The same eyes as yours. Help me now… or I shall make certain their deaths… were in vain…"

Something about the casual statement about her parents' murders by their murderer himself caused a fiery snap within Whitney, and she leapt forward at Quirrell's back, tackling him to the ground. Not expecting the outburst, and facing the wrong direction to defend himself, Quirrell fell forward onto the stone floor with a cry of shock. His wand clattered away somewhere against the wall and Voldemort screeched, "Seize her! SEIZE HER!"

Quirrell's advantage in height and strength allowed him to throw her aside without much trouble, and Whitney felt a rush of panic as his hands closed around her throat. Pain erupted through her body at his very touch, but she fought hard not to scream. At first, she thought she had failed, but after a moment, she realized that the screaming she could hear was coming from Quirrell and not herself.

"My hands!" Quirrell bawled, looking down at raw, blistering flesh.

Taking her opportunity, Whitney used her vast experience with being held down by a larger person, and brought her knee up hard into Quirrell's most sensitive area. He howled, falling to the side, and Whitney scrambled to her feet, rushing for the door, heedless of the flames licking the frame. Prepared to be scorched as badly as Quirrell's hands, Whitney clenched her eyes and ran at the black fire.

Rather than heat and pain, however, Whitney collided with something soft, yet unrelenting. She fell back onto the stone, and looked up at a sight more terrifying than even Voldemort's visage on the back of Quirrell's head.

Professor Dumbledore towered above her, every line in his face filled with contempt and rage. She would never remember the words he spoke as he raised his wand, no matter how hard she tried, but Quirrell crumpled to the floor, and a cloud as black as tire smoke exploded from his body, expanding to fill the room. White-hot agony overloaded Whitney's senses, and darkness overtook the world.


	20. Goodbye for Now

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Author Note: It's finally posted. This is the final chapter of the story. Please, even if you don't normally review, let me know if you would be interested in reading more of Whitney Potter, the Girl Who Lived, and I will continue the legacy.

All my love.

\-wujy

* * *

><p>Chapter Twenty – Goodbye for Now<p>

* * *

><p>The next thing Whitney was fully aware of was a dull throb from somewhere just beneath the scar on her forehead. The second was the sterile smell of the Hospital Wing. She took in a deep breath, so grateful for that abrasively-clean smell, and breathed out slowly, stretching the muscles in her aching legs and arms.<p>

"Awake at last."

Whitney jumped, jarring her sore limbs, and her eyes snapped open, but she relaxed back into the bed when she saw the Headmaster peering down at her. "You gave us quite a scare," he told her.

Whitney tried to speak, but found she couldn't. She cleared her dry throat and reached for a glass of water on her bedside table. She drank the entire glass in three gulps, licked her lips, and then looked back at Dumbledore with uncertain, but thankful eyes.

"You saved me," she said, her voice still a little hoarse.

"Oh, you were doing quite well on your own," he replied, clearly amused. "It seems your mother left her mark on you when she died."

"Sir?"

Dumbledore nodded knowingly. "You were too young to remember the night that Voldemort killed your parents, but in the end, your mother gave her life for yours. She offered to take your place. It was her sacrifice, I believe, that protected you from Voldemort's curse that night, and her sacrifice that protected you from his touch three nights ago. Every ounce of her love for you permeates your very being, and if there is anything that Voldemort doesn't understand—cannot bear—it is love."

Whitney made a face. "That's probably why he's an evil prat," she said before she could stop herself. Dumbledore, however, laughed, making Whitney blush slightly.

"I imagine that's very nearly the root of the problem," he replied. "You, however, seem to have in spades what Voldemort lacks."

He gestures to the foot of the bed to a stack of candy and cards. Whitney looked dumbly at the pile for a moment before asking, "Is that for… me?"

"Indeed. Your Housemates should be relieved that you're finally awake."

Whitney couldn't stop the shy smile that crossed her face. After a moment, though, she looked ashamed. "I thought it was Professor Snape," she admitted to the Headmaster, who nodded sagely. "Hermione was convinced he was using magic during my first Quidditch game.

"Professor Snape, I'm afraid, does lend himself over to a rather dark disposition," he acknowledged. "As it turns out, in fact, he was using magic at your first game, but not to knock you from your broom. He was performing a counter curse."

Whitney was silent after that, and Professor Dumbledore stood up from his seat next to her bed.

"I'll leave you to your rest," he said, "and your thoughts."

Whitney nodded and laid her head back on her pillow once more. She listened to the Headmaster's footsteps as he walked out of the room, an almost hypnotic noise that ushered her back to sleep.

* * *

><p>Whitney knocked on the door of Professor Snape's office, at first with confidence that tapered into hesitation. Her fourth knock was barely a tap as doubt grasped her made her stomach flutter. She prayed that he wasn't in and she could scurry away with no one the wiser, but the deep voice from the other side called, "Enter!"<p>

Feeling sicker than she had staring down even Voldemort, Whitney pushed open the door and stepped inside, leaving it open so she could make a quick exit when she was finished.

Professor Snape sneered at her and said, "Exams are long over, Potter. No time now to earn credit to offset what I'm sure is a truly abysmal grade."

_I should go_, Whitney thought to herself, but she remained rooted to the floor anyway.

She wet her lips and cleared her throat, and Snape set down the quill he'd been writing with and looked at her expectantly. She wished he wouldn't glare at her with such contempt, but there was nothing to be done for it. She attempted to look him in the eyes, but her focus refused to rise above the prominent crick in his nose.

"I just… Well, I wanted to apologize," she finally forced herself to say.

"Apologize?" Snape asked, sounding lazily intrigued. "Whatever for?" Sarcasm dripped easily from his tongue.

"I h-heard you," she stammered. "In the forest with Quirrell. I… I thought it was you. You with Voldemort, but you were trying to stop him."

Her gaze slipped upward to look into his surprised eyes. "And I wanted to say thank you, because… B-because I know you were trying to save me when he was cursing my broom."

Snape's expression of shocked contempt remained frozen on his face as he asked, "Is that all?"

Whitney squirmed beneath the weight of his obvious disapproval. Her eyes dropped, and she said quickly, "Y-yeah. Yes. That's it."

Without waiting for his response, Whitney shuffled out of the office, closing the door heavily behind her as she went, feeling slightly sick.

Contrary to what Professor Snape had told her, when exam grades were finally announced, she had done reasonabley well in his glass, and had earned high marks in all of her other classes except History of Magic. Hermione, of course, had the best marks in the year, but was still extremely cross with Whitney for leaving her behind.

"Could've gotten yourselves _killed, _you know," she said to Whitney, who laughed a little.

"I do, actually," she quipped, which silenced Hermione, who merely hugged her friend and walked with her to dinner.

The Great Hall was lined with red-and-gold when they arrived, and the Gryffindors were being louder than usual. This, however, seemed to be tolerated by the teachers at least for this night, when the House Cup changed hands from Slytherin to Gryffindor for a year. Whitney picked through her food slowly, knowing it would be the last decent meal she would get for a while, and let the cheer and enthusiasm soak into her; she was going to need it where she was going. She squirreled away a few morsels to take with her on the train ride back to London.

She shared them with Ron, Neville, and Hermione on the way to King's Cross.

"If they don't show up," Ron said, chewing on a biscuit, "you can some stay with us this summer. Mum said so. And you _have_ to come visit."

Whitney perked up. "Really? That would be great."

Ron nodded, but his mouth was too full to reply. "You can come stay with me, too, if you like," Hermione offered.

"And if you don't mind my gran fussing, I'm sure you could visit us," Neville added, looking both gloomy and hopeful.

Whitney was overwhelmed with emotions and unable to speak for a few moments, but no one seemed to mind. She glanced up at her trunk where she had hidden a photo album of her parents that Hagrid had made for her and thought about how wonderful the year had been. Nothing and no one was going to take Hogwarts or magic from her if she had anything to say about it, so she let herself feel happy.

"I think I'd like all that a lot," she said, turning pink around her ears. "Someone would need to pick me up, though. It was hard enough to get the Dursleys to make the trip to the station. You'll write over break, yeah?"

"Promise," the three of them chimed together.

Whitney was glowing when they got off the train, even in the face of her horrible family. She skipped over them to Ron's mother and stood before her, looking as humble as she could make herself appear. "I really wanted to thank you for the Christmas gift, Mrs. Weasley," she said. "The sweater was lovely and the fudge was really good."

Mrs. Weasley put her hand over her heart the way mothers do and put her other hand on top of Whitney's head. "I got your owl saying so, but it's so sweet of you to say again," she said, and she meant it.

_Maybe owls _can _read, _Whitney thought vaguely to herself.

Pulling up every ounce of bravery she could manage, Whitney stepped forward and hugged Mrs. Weasley around the middle very quickly before running off to join the Dursleys, who all looked somewhere in the spectrum between terrified and sick. Whitney waved back to the Weasleys, Hermione, and Neville, and then turned to face the Dursleys.

"I had a wonderful year," she said, evening knowing that they wouldn't care.

"Shut up," Vernon said firmly, but Whitney couldn't stop smiling.


	21. Chamber of Secrets Preview

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Author Note: My Girl Who Lived series is based upon myself at Harry's age, and progresses along a slightly different path from the books. I strongly encourage you to read the first installment before reading this one, since there are several differences from JKR's original works.

I had a number of people request for me to write a sequel to WPPS, so here it is. Thank you so much to all of my wonderful readers who have supported me. I will try to post as often as I am able to write, but Chamber of Secrets is possibly my favorite book, so I'm going to try to make it extra special. Enjoy this, the christening chapter, and as always, please review.

/-wujy

* * *

><p>Chapter One – What the Next Year Holds<p>

* * *

><p>It was one o'clock in the morning, and Whitney was sitting on her bed, staring at her hand. Her palm was upturned and a single bobby pin lay on top of it. She looked from the bobby pin to the lock on Lily's cage and back to the bobby pin again. "Fred said it would work," she said to Lily, who was staring at the girl with an owl's wide, discerning eyes. "He said that locks have got pens in them, or something, and that you just have to click them the right way."<p>

Lily looked doubtful, and so did Whitney. Nevertheless, Whitney crept closer to the cage, careful to skip over the creaky board in her floor, under which she'd hidden several of her favorite things from the magical world. She took the lock in hand and turned it over as far as she could, inspecting it.

"I don't know any reason there would be pens in a lock," Whitney said to the owl. "I prefer quills anyway."

She sighed and held the bobby pin aloft, sticking one end into the lock. She wiggled it around for a moment, trying to feel the individual "pens," but it all felt like a mess of metal to her untrained hand. Whitney bit her bottom lip as she tried to concentrate on finding some hidden nook where the bobby pin would simply fit, so she could turn the lock and let Lily out into the night, but there was no such lock. Letting go of the lock and leaving the bobby pin sticking out of it, Whitney sat down on the floor behind her and crossed her arms over her chest.

"This is stupid," she declared to Lily, who turned her head ninety degrees clockwise in agreement. "If we were at school, I'd just spell it off."

School for Whitney, as of a year ago, was Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where a flick of her wand and the proper word would have popped the lock open easily. Somehow, magic was a much simpler concept to the girl than the pins of a Muggle lock, which was a comforting thought in that Whitney knew she truly belonged in the world of magic. Unfortunately, that thought wasn't doing anything to open Lily's cage and let the poor owl stretch her wings.

"I'm sorry, Lily," Whitney whispered. "I'm rubbish without my wand."

She sniffed and rubbed a stubborn tear off of her cheek. Lily hooted softly, encouragingly even. It had been a difficult summer since Whitney had returned from Hogwarts. The Dursleys treated her as though she were a ghost—ignoring her when they were able, speaking about her as though she wasn't in the room, and skirting around her in hallways like they might catch their deaths. It would all be the same to Whitney one way or another, but it was made harder by the fact that her friends from Hogwarts were apparently doing the same. Even Lily seemed to notice the lack of letters from her friends, and when Whitney's birthday fast approaching, she'd been a little on the emotional side.

Whitney pulled the bobby pin from the lock, tucked it back into her pillowcase for safekeeping, and covered up with her fraying blanket. She turned over, her back toward the offending lock, and fell asleep, feeling absolutely wretched.

/-

The following morning, Whitney made her way downstairs only to be properly confronted by her uncle and aunt. After having been largely ignored for the better part of the summer, she was mildly taken aback at being so forcefully spoke to.

"Girl," her uncle beckoned gruffly. "Come here."

Whitney looked uncertain, but she approached the table. "Yes?" she asked, a little confused.

"Don't take that tone with me, you ragamuffin," her uncle commanded. This rather amused Whitney because, even though she was presently wearing some of Dudley's enormous hand-me-downs, Uncle Vernon couldn't have known that she kept two sets of brand-new clothes under her floorboard upstairs.

"And don't smirk like that," Petunia snapped.

"Right," Whitney said, wiping the half-smile off her face. "What was it?"

"You have your instructions for the evening," Vernon said. "You're to stay in your room, make no noise and—"

"Pretend I'm not there," Whitney finished for him, nodding.

"Precisely," Vernon said, his voice filled with warning. "And stay out of your aunt's way while she's cleaning today."

Whitney wondered to herself when she had ever prevented Petunia from cleaning, and in the process of the thought, decided it wasn't worth this nonsense to eat breakfast with her family. She turned around to step out of the kitchen when a thought occurred to her.

She turned slowly to look at her uncle, who had since resume drinking a nasty cup of thick, black coffee. She cleared her throat to get his attention and he turned to her with dangerous eyes.

"I… Well, I was only thinking that it's going to be really hard to make sure that Lily keeps quiet all evening," she said in a small voice.

Vernon's face turned deep shade of red as his rage bubbled to the top. Whitney saw a shouting match approaching, but she held up defensive hands and clarified, "I can really only do so much to make sure she keeps silent. I can't exactly put a muzzle on a bird, you know. If I could just let her out of the cage, she could go and sleep in a tree somewhere tonight."

Whitney couldn't almost hear the clockwork ticking away in Vernon's brain. His greatest fear in Whitney having the owl was that it would be in and out at all hours, delivering mail from Whitney's "freak friends," but this business deal was just important enough that it might be the thing to change his mind, at least for a night. Whitney waited in silence, wondering if her uncle's head might just pop off and whiz around the room like a balloon if he didn't come to a conclusion soon.

When his answer did come, it was short and abrupt, but favorable. "Tonight," he said simply, pulling a key from his pocket and tossing it across the kitchen at her. "I'm warning you, brat," he said dangerously, the color of his face dimming from purple back to a mottled red, "if that ruddy bird so much as peeks through a window at us tonight, I'll have its wings clipped."

Whitney, understanding that this was not an idle threat, ran upstairs to her room with her prize in hand. Lily was less than thrilled at being woken up in the early hours of the morning, but hooted happily when she saw that Whitney was unlocking and opening the cage. Lily hopped forward and out of the cage, stretching her wings as far as they would go.

Keeping her voice low, Whitney spoke quickly to the owl. "I want you to go and find Ron or Neville, okay?" she asked. "Whoever lives closer. I want you stay with them the rest of the summer and I'll see you again at school."

Lily nipped at Whitney's hand, annoyed, but Whitney shook her head. "I know, and I'm sorry. I wouldn't ask you to leave, but my uncle's a nutter and he's just going to put you back in the cage if you come back. It's for the best, I promise, at least for now."

Lily took a moment to nudge the back of Whitney's hand with the top of her head, and her wingtips brushed the girl's cheek as she took flight and left through the open window. Whitney sighed heavily as she watched the owl go, now truly alone for the first time since she'd found out about magic last year. She took in a sharp breath and denied the tears that threatened to overcome her, looking instead to the key in her hand. "Suppose I'll have to give you back, then," she said to the key, her own voice echoing in the empty room.

/-

Whitney spent the rest of the day in her room following her uncle's orders to the letter. She had retrieved _History Through the Ages_ from the loose floorboard in her room and was sitting next to her window, straining to read it with only the moonlight outside. She frowned in annoyance each time a cloud passed by, throwing her into darkness, but she was nothing if not patient, especially since this book was her last remaining tie to the wizarding world.

Or it was, until a nearby popping noise signaled the entrance of a small, brown creature with enormous features. Whitney's mouth popped open as she stared.

The creature bowed low to her, his long nose nearly touching the floor. "Whitney Potter," he squeaked in a high-pitched voice. "Such an honor to be meeting you, miss."

Whitney closed her mouth and cleared her throat. She set her book aside. "Nice to, er… meet you," she replied, "whoever you are."

"Dobby, miss. Dobby, the house-elf."

Whitney nodded, but flinched as Petunia's fake laughter drifted up the stairs. Whitney licked her drying lips. "Well, Dobby… er, I'm not really…" She looks down at herself. "I'm not really dressed to have guests in my room."

"Guests!" Dobby squealed, and Whitney cringed. "Never has a witch ever called Dobby a guest! A guest of Whitney Potter!"

Whitney heard an eerie silence from downstairs and anticipated the housework she would have to do as punishment the next day. "Uh, well, I know that we've only just met, Dobby, but might I ask a personal favor?"

Dobby looked at Whitney with watery, tear-filled eyes at the request. "A… A personal… A favor. Whitney Potter wants to ask Dobby for a—"

Whitney interrupted him before he could get loud again. "Well, I was just hoping that you could be very, very quiet," she said. "My aunt and uncle are entertaining downstairs and I'm to make no noise up here. I would owe you one, if you could just be… quieter."

"Owe… Owe Dobby a… favor…" His voice was considerable softer, but as tears began to spill over the brims of his eyelids, he sobbed hysterically. Panicking, Whitney leapt forward to grab the pillow from her bed and handed it to him.

"Here," she said quickly. "Into the pillow. Into the pillow. Shh… Er, there-there."

Dobby took the pillow and it muffled his cried for the most part, while Whitney looked awkwardly around the room, hoping for some idea of what to do about this.

"So, you said… you were a house-elf, eh?" Whitney asked in an attempt to make conversation. "What is… I mean, what exactly is a house-elf?"

Dobby sniffled a few more times, and Whitney dreaded what house-elf snot would do to the case, but tried not to think about it now. "A house-elf serves a wizarding family, miss," Dobby answered. "Dobby is bound to serve his family forever."

Whitney looks miserably to her bedroom door where she can hear her uncle telling an awful joke that he thinks is funny. "That sounds familiar," she says. "I do the cooking and the cleaning and the wash and the gutters, and still I'm locked upstairs when company is over."

She sighs and looks to Dobby. "So, why was it you came?" she asked. "Just to visit? I'm happy to visit, but it's not the best of times now."

"Ah, miss!" Dobby exclaimed, before clamping his hands over his mouth apologetically. "Dobby has come to protect Whitney Potter, to warn her even if he has to punish himself severely for disobeying his family. Whitney Potter must not return to Hogwarts."

Of all the things Dobby could have said, this was something Whitney had least expected. "Not… Not go back?" Whitney asked, looking around her room. "I can't not go back," she said. "Have you seen where I live? Who I stay with? I have to go back."

Dobby shook his head quickly. "No no no. Whitney Potter must not return to Hogwarts. She is to precious. She is too important. It is too dangerous."

Whitney snorted at this. "It's always dangerous for me, Dobby. No matter where I go, danger seems to find me. But I'm safer at Hogwarts than I am here."

"But there is a plot, Whitney Potter. There is a terrible—there is a horrible—there is a devious plot to make terrible things happen. Dobby has known it for months, miss. For months!"

Whitney sat on the floor next to Dobby and her pillow and put her hands on his shoulders. "I really appreciate that you've come to tell me this," Whitney said slowly. "It's really very sweet of you, but Hogwarts is my home."

"But, miss—!" Dobby began, but Whitney interrupted him with a question he did not expect.

"Do you like being a house-elf, Dobby?"

Dobby was struck silent for a moment, his large, lipless mouth hanging open for a second. He started to shake his head, but then leapt onto the nightstand and slammed his fingers into the drawer, squealing loudly. Whitney darted forward to cover his mouth and to stop him from slamming the drawer again. She wrestled him back to the ground, and held him firmly in her lap until he stopped struggling against her. He crawled away and back to the pillow after a moment and Whitney could hear Vernon making some excuse about a cat making noise upstairs.

Whitney breathed slowly and steadily. "I don't mean for you to punish yourself," Whitney said slowly, "but if you had the chance to stop being a house-elf, even if the alternative was something dangerous, wouldn't you do it?"

Dobby was silent for several moments, after which he tugged a stack of envelopes from his clothes and dropped them onto the floor. Whitney was startled to see them for a moment, but when she realized what they were, she reached for them slowly. "My… mail?" she asked, reading the names of her friends on them. She saw several birthday cards that would have arrived that day, too.

"Dobby thought if Whitney Potter thought her friends had forgotten her, she might not want to go back to school," Dobby said apologetically. "Dobby cannot always sneak away from his family, miss, but Dobby will try to help Whitney Potter stay safe at Hogwarts."

Whitney looked up at Dobby and smiled softly. "Then that's two I owe you," she said quietly, and Dobby disappeared.


End file.
